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( 


SEVEN FOR A SECRET 

A Love Story 


BY 

MRS. MARY \^EBB 

Author of “ The Spring of Joy” “The Golden Arrow” 
“Gone to Earth” “The House in Dormer 
Forest ” etc . 


NEW 
GEORGE H. 


'35Jf YORK 
DORAN COMPANY 




J 



4 



C0 





COPYRIGHT, 1923, 

BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 




SEVEN FOR A SECRET. II 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


MAY 28’23 v ' 

©C1A704G9 




TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS NAME OF 

THOMAS HARDY 

WHOSE ACCEPTANCE OF THIS DEDICATION 
HAS MADE ME SO HAPPY 









< 

























* 





CHAPTER 

CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I 

Gillian Lovekin. 

11 

II 

Robert Rideout. 

21 

III 

Aunt Fanteague Arrives 

27 

IV 

Gillian Asks for a Kiss .... 

40 

V 

Robert Writes Two Letters . 

52 

VI 

Tea at the Junction .... 

64 

VII 

Gillian Comes to Silverton 

74 

VIII 

Gillian Meets Mr. Gentle 

86 

IX 

The Harper’s Forge .... 

92 

X 

The Burning Heart .... 

100 

XI 

Isaiah Asks a Question .... 

113 

XII 

At the Sign of the Maiden . 

120 

XIII 

Robert Says “No”. 

132 

XIV 

“Daggly” Weather .... 

139 

XV 

Isaiah Hears a Belownder 

145 

XVI 

Ralph Elmer Comes to Dinner 

155 

XVII 

Tea for Four at the “Mermaid’s Rest” . 

164 

XVIII 

The Gifts of Ralph Elmer to Gillian 



Lovekin. 

177 

XIX 

Bloom in the Orchard .... 

189 


vii 





viii Contents 


CHAPTER PAGE 


XX 

Robert Pleaches the Thorn Hedge . 

195 

XXI 

Briar Roses. 

201 

XXII 

Weeping Cross. 

210 

XXIII 

Isaiah Says “Ha!” .... 

217 

XXIV 

A Hank of Faery Wool 

224 

XXV 

The Bride Comes Home 

234 

XXVI 

A.B.C. at the Sign of the Maiden . 

239 

XXVII 

“In a Dream She Cradled Me” . 

246 

XXVIII 

Fringal Forgets to Laugh 

257 

XXIX 

Snow in the Little Gyland 

271 

XXX 

Robert Awaits the Dawn 

278 

XXXI 

“Now, What Be Troublin’ Thee?” . 

284 

XXXII 

“Seven for a Secret That’s Never Been 



Told”. 

294 




SEVEN FOR A SECRET 


I saw seven magpies in a tree. 
One for you and six for me, 
One for sorrow, 

Two for joy, 

Three for a girl, 

Four for a boy. 

Five for silver, 

Six for gold, 

Seven for a secret 
That’s never been told. 

Old Rhyme . 


SEVEN FOR A SECRET 


chapter i: Gillian Lovekin 

O N a certain cold winter evening, in the country that lies 
between the dimpled lands of England and the gaunt 
purple steeps of Wales—half in Faery and half out of it— 
the old farmhouse that stood in the midst of the folds and 
billows of Dysgwlfas-on-the-Wild-Moors glowed with a 
deep gem-like lustre in its vast setting of grey and violet. 
Moorland country is never colourless. It still keeps, when 
every heather-bell is withered, in its large mysterious ex¬ 
panses, a bloom of purple like the spirit of the heather. 
Against this background, which lay on every side, mile on 
sombre mile, the homestead, with its barns and stacks, held 
and refracted every ray of the declining sunlight, and 
made a comfortable and pleasant picture beneath the 
fleecy, low, cinereous sky, which boded snow. The farm¬ 
house was built of fine old mellow sandstone, of that 
weatherworn and muted red which takes an indescribable 
beauty beneath the level rays of dawn and sunset, as though 
it irradiated the light that touched it. It was evening only 
in the sense in which that word is used in this border 
country, which is any time after noon. It was not yet 
tea-time, though preparations for tea were going on within. 
Among the cornricks, which burned under the sun into a 
memory of the unreaped August tints of orange and 
tawny and yellow, redpolls were feasting and seeking their 
customary shelter for the night, and one or two late- 
lingering mountain linnets kept up their sad little lament 
of “twite-twite-twite” in the bare blackthorn hedge. 

11 


12 


Seven for a Secret 

Blackbirds began to think of fluffing their feathers, settling 
cosily, and drawing up their eyelids. They “craiked” and 
scolded in their anxiety to attain each his secret Nirvana. 
From the stubble fields, that lay like a small pale coin on 
the outspread moor, a flock of starlings came past with a 
rip of the air like the tearing of strong silk. 

The rickyard lay on the north side of the foldyard; on 
the south was the house; to the east it was bounded by the 
shippen, the cowhouses and stables. To the west lay the 
orchard, and beyond it the cottage, which in these lonely 
places is always built when the farm is built. The whole 
thing formed a companionable little township of some five 
hundred souls—allowing the turkeys to have souls, and 
including the ewes when they lay near the house at lamb¬ 
ing time. As to whether the redpolls, the linnets and the 
starlings should be included, Gillian of Dysgwlfas was 
often doubtful. They sang; they flew; and nobody could 
sing or fly without a soul: but they were so quick and light 
and inconsequent, their songs were so thin and eerie, that 
Gillian thought their souls were not quite real—faery 
souls, weightless as an eggshell when the egg has been 
sucked out. On the roof of the farm the black fantail 
pigeons, which belonged to Robert Rideout of the cottage, 
sidled up and down uneasily. All day, troubled by the 
clangour within the house, they had stepped at intervals, 
very gingerly, to the edge of the thatch, and set each a 
ruby eye peering downwards. They had observed that the 
leaded windows stood open, every one, all day; that the 
two carved armchairs with the red cushions, and the big 
sheepskin hearthrug of the parlour, had been brought out 
on to the square lawn where the dovecote was, and beaten. 
They had seen Simon, their hated enemy, slinking round 
the borders where the brown stems of the perennials had 
been crisped by early frosts, miserable as he always was on 
cleaning days, finally sulking in the window of the corn- 
loft and refusing to enter the house at all. All this, they 
knew, meant some intrusion of the outer world, the world 


Gillian Lovekin 


13 


that lay beyond their furthest gaze, into this quiet place, 
drenched in old silence. It must be that Farmer Lovekin’s 
sister was coming—that Mrs. Fanteague who caused clean¬ 
ings of the dovecote, whom they hated. They marked 
their disapproval by flashing up all together with a steely 
clatter of wings, and surveying the lessening landscape 
from the heights of the air. 

Most of the windows were shut now, and a warm, de¬ 
licious scent of cooking afflicted Simon’s appetite so that 
he rose, stretched, yawned, washed cursorily, shelved his 
dignity and descended to the kitchen, where he twined 
himself about the quick feet of Mrs. Makepeace, urgent 
between the larder and the great open fire, with its oven 
on one side and gurgling boiler on the other. 

By the kitchen table stood Gillian Lovekin. Her full 
name was Juliana, but the old-fashioned way of treating 
the name had continued in the Lovekin family. She was 
stoning raisins. Every sixth raisin she put into her mouth, 
rapturously and defiantly, remembering that she and not 
Mrs. Makepeace was mistress of the farm. When her 
mother died Gillian had been only sixteen. Her first 
thought, she remembered with compunction, had been that 
now she would be mistress. She was eighteen on this 
evening of preparation, and just “out of her black.” She 
was neither tall nor short, neither stout nor very slender; 
she was not dark nor fair, not pretty nor ugly. She had 
ugly things about her, such as the scar which seamed one 
side of her forehead, and gave that profile an intent, re¬ 
lentless look. Her nose was much too high in the bridge 
—the kind of nose that comes of Welsh ancestry and is 
common in the west. It gave her, in her softest moods, 
a domineering air. But her mouth was sensitive and 
sweet, and could be yielding sometimes, and her eyes had 
so much delight in all they looked upon, and saw so much 
incipient splendour in common things, that they charmed 
you and led you in a spell, and would not let you think 
her plain or dull. 


14 


Seven for a Secret 


She liked to do her daily tasks with an air; so she used 
the old Staffordshire bowl (which had been sent from that 
county as a wedding present for her grandmother) to dip 
her fingers in when they were sticky. The brown raisins 
were heaped up on a yellow plate, and she made a gracious 
picture with her two plaits of brown hair, her dark eye¬ 
brows bent above eyes of lavender-grey, and her richly- 
tinted face with its country tan and its flush of brownish 
rose. The firelight caressed her, and Simon, when he 
could spare time from the bits of fat that fell off Mrs. 
Makepeace’s mincing board, blinked at her greenly and 
lovingly. 

Mrs. Makepeace was making chitterling puffs and apple 
cobs. 

“Well!” she said, mincing so swiftly that she seemed 
to mince her own fingers every time, “we’ve claned this 
day, if ever!” 

Gillian sighed. She disliked these bouts of fierce manual 
industry almost as much as Simon did. 

“I’m sure my A’nt Fanteague did ought to be pleased,” 
she said, making her aunt’s name into three syllables. 

“Mrs. Fanteague,” observed Mrs. Makepeace, “is a lady 
as is never pl’ased. Take your dear ’eart out, serve on 
toast with gravy of your bone and sinew. Would she say 
‘Thank you?’ She’d sniff and she’d peer, and she’d say 
with that loud lungeous voice of ’ers: ‘What you want, my 
good ’oman, is a larger ’eart.’ ” 

Gillian’s laugh rang out, and Simon, who loved her 
voice, came purring across the kitchen and leapt into her 
lap. 

“Saving your presence, Miss Gillian, child,” added Mrs. 
Makepeace, “and excuse me making game of your A’ntie.” 

“Time and agen,” said Gillian, pushing away the plate 
of raisins, “I think I’d lief get in the cyart by A’nt Fan¬ 
teague when she goes back to Sil’erton, and go along of 
her, beyond the Gwlfas and the mountains, beyond the 
sea-” 


Gillian Lovekin 15 

“Wheer then?” queried Mrs. Makepeace practically. 

“To the moon-O! maybe.” 

“By Leddy! What’d your feyther do?” 

“Feyther’s forgetful. He wouldna miss me sore.” 

“And Robert? My Bob?” 

She looked swiftly at Gillian, her brown eyes keen and 
motherly. 

“Oh, Robert?” mused Gillian, her hands going up and 
down amid Simon’s dark fur. 

She brooded. 

“Robert Rideout?” she murmured. Then she swung 
her plaits backwards with a defiant toss, and cried: “He 
wouldna miss me neither!” 

She flung Simon down and got up. 

“It’s closing in,” she said. “I mun see to my coney 
wires.” 

“It’s to be hoped, my dear, as you’ll spare me a coney 
out of your catch to make a patty. Your A’nt Fanteague 
dearly loves a coney patty.” 

“Not without feyther pays for it,” said Gillian. “If I 
give away my conies as fast as I catch ’em, where’s my 
lessons in the music?” 

She opened the old nail-studded door that gave on the 
foldyard, and was gone. 

“Gallus!” observed Mrs. Makepeace. “Ah, she’s gallus, 
and forever ’ankering after the world’s deceit, but she’s 
got an ’eart, if you can only get your fingers round it, 
Robert, my lad. But I doubt you binna for’ard enow.” 

She shook her head over the absent Robert so that the 
strings of her sunbonnet swung out on either side of her 
round, red, cheerful face. 

“If I didna know as John Rideout got you long afore 
I took pity on poor Makepeace (and a man of iron John 
Rideout was, and it’s strange as I should come to a man 
of straw), I’d be nigh thinking you was Makepeace’s, time 
and agen. Dreamy—dreamy!” 

She rolled and slapped and minced as if her son and 


16 


Seven for a Secret 


her second husband were on the rolling board and she was 
putting them into shape. But John Rideout, the man of 
iron, remained in her mind as a being beyond her shaping. 
After his death she had seen all other men as so many 
children, to be cared for and scolded, and because Jonathan 
Makepeace was the most helpless man she had ever met, 
she married him. She had seen him first on a market day 
at the Keep. Tall, narrow, with his long hair and beard 
blowing in the wind, his mild blue eye met hers with the 
sadness of one who laments: “When I speak unto them of 
peace, they make them ready for battle.” For the tragedy 
of Jonathan Makepeace was that, since he had first held 
a rattle, inanimate matter had been his foe. He was a 
living illustration of the theory that matter cuts across the 
path of life. In its crossing of Jonathan’s path it was 
never Jonathan that came off as victor. Jugs flung them¬ 
selves from his hands; buckets and cisterns decanted their 
contents over him; tablecloths caught on any metal por¬ 
tion of his clothing, dragging with them the things on the 
table. If he gathered fruit, a heavy fire of apples poured 
upon his head. If he fished, he fell into the water. Many 
bits of his coat, and one piece of finger, had been given to 
that Moloch, the turnip-cutter. When he forked the 
garden, he forked his own feet. When he chopped wood, 
pieces flew up into his face like furious birds. If he made 
a bonfire, flames drew themselves out to an immense length 
in order to singe his beard. This idiosyncrasy of inani¬ 
mate nature (or of Jonathan) was well known on the 
moors, and was enjoyed to the full, from Mallard’s Keep, 
which lay to the north, to the steep dusky market town of 
Weeping Cross, which lay south. It was enjoyed with the 
quiet, uncommenting, lasting enjoyment of the country¬ 
side. On the day Abigail met him, it was being enjoyed 
at the Keep, where the weekly market was, and where 
people shopped on ordinary occasions, reserving Christmas 
or wedding or funeral shopping for the more distant 
Weeping Cross. Jonathan had been shopping. Under one 


Gillian Lovekin 


17 


arm he had a bag of chicken-food; under the other, bran. 
Both bags, aware of Jonathan, had gently burst, and a 
crowd followed him with silent and ecstatic mirth while 
he wandered, dignified and pathetic, towards the inn, with 
the streams of grain and bran making his passing like a 
paperchase. She had heard of Jonathan (who had not?) 
and this vision of him was the final proof that he needed 
mothering. She told him briskly what was happening, and 
his “Deary, deary me!” and his smile seemed to her very 
lovable. She wrapped up his parcels and listened sympa¬ 
thetically to his explanations. There was “summat come 
over” things, he said. “Seemed like they was bewitched.” 
She did not laugh. She had a kind of ancient wisdom 
about her that fitted in with her firm, rosy face, her robin¬ 
like figure. She knew that the heavens were not the same 
heavens for all. The rain did not fall equally on the evil 
and the good. Here was Jonathan, as good as gold, yet 
every cloud in heaven seemed to collect above him. As he 
ruefully said, “Others met be dry as tinder, but I’m 
soused.” Realising that war with the inanimate is woman’s 
special province, because she has been trained by centuries 
of housework—of catching cups as they sidle from their 
hooks and jugs as they edge from the table—Mrs. Rideout 
decided to spend the rest of her life fighting for Jonathan* 
She had done so for twelve years, to her own delight, the 
admiration of the country round, and Jonathan’s content, 
Robert was ten years old when she married Makepeace, 
His heavily-lashed eyes, which had a dark glance as well as 
a tender one, and of which it was difficult to see the colour 
because of their blazing vitality, his forbidding mouth with 
its rare sweet smile, were so like his father’s that she would 
ponder on him for hours at a time. To John Rideout she 
was faithful, though she married Makepeace. And as 
Christmas after Christmas went by, and still Jonathan was 
alive and well, she triumphed. She loved him with a ma¬ 
ternal love, and when Robert grew to manhood, Jonathan 
took his place. Abigail would look at his tall, thin figure 


18 


Seven for a Secret 


with pride, remembering all that she had saved him from 
during the past year. 

Now, while Abigail worked in the farm kitchen, Jona¬ 
than was very unhappily putting a tallow dip in his horn 
lantern, in order to harness the mare and go to the station 
across the moor to fetch Mrs. Fanteague. The tallow 
candle refused to stand up, bending towards him like the 
long greyish neck of a cygnet, pouring tallow on to Mrs. 
Makepeace’s check tablecloth. Jonathan thought of the 
things that the harness would do, of the gates that would 
slam in his face, and the number of times he would drop 
the whip; he thought of the miles of darkly sighing moor 
which he must cross in order to bring back Mrs. Fanteague 
and her sharp-cornered box (always by the mercy of heaven 
and in defiance of material things), and he sighed. Abigail 
would have a sup of tea ready for him when he got home. 
“If he got home,” he amended. With a fatalism which 
shrouded his character like a cloak, he regarded the worst 
as the only thing likely to happen, and whether he stubbed 
his foot or fell from the top of the hay-bay, he only said, 
“Lard’s will be done.” 

As he opened the stable door, a goblin of wind puffed 
his light out. The door slammed and pinched his fingers. 
He had no matches. Time pressed, for no one ever kept 
Mrs. Fanteague waiting. He lifted up his voice. 

“Robert Rideout! Robert Rideout!” he called. 

His thin cry wandered through the foldyard to the rick- 
yard, and brought sleepy eyelids half-way down. The 
•echoes strayed disconsolately into the vagueness of the sur¬ 
rounding moor, which, at sunset, had darkened like a 
frown. 

Robert did not appear. 

“Off on lonesome!” commented Jonathan. “What a 
lad! Oh, what a useless, kim-kam lad! Never a hand’s 
turn. Alius glooming and glowering on the yeath!” 

“What ails you, stepfeyther?” asked a deep and quiet 


Gillian Lovekin 19 

voice. “What for be you blaating by your lonesome out¬ 
side the dark door?” 

Jonathan sighed with relief, settling himself like a 
sleepy bird in the strong, secure presence of Robert Ride¬ 
out. He stood with his white hair blowing, wringing his 
hands like a frail prophet of disaster, and told Robert of 
the long day’s mishaps. 

“Ah! It’s alius like that when mother’s off at farm,” 
said Robert, fetching out the mare, who nestled her nose 
softly into his rough coat. Horses never worked so well 
for any one as for Robert. When he milked the cows, 
they gave more milk. No ewe, it was said, would drop 
her lambs untimely if he were shepherd. The very hens, 
obliged by hereditary instinct to “steal their nesses,” would 
come forth with their bee-like swarms of chicks when 
Robert went by, revealing their sin and their glory to his 
eye alone. 

“Ready!” said Robert. He gave Jonathan the reins and 
whip, tucked a sack round his knees, saw to the lamps, and 
opened the gate. 

“Leave a light in stable, lad, agen we come—if we 
come.” 

This was his customary phrase. If he only went to call 
the ducks from the pond, he bade his wife as fond a fare¬ 
well as if he were going on a voyage. It was most prob¬ 
able that he would fall head foremost among the ducks 
and that the weeds would coil themselves about him and 
drag him down. It was curious that no one ever thought 
of stopping Jonathan doing these responsible tasks. For 
instance, he went to “lug” Mrs. Fanteague back because 
he always did so. Things happened; but, so far, the worst 
had not occurred. There is a vein of optimistic fatalism 
in the country which always hopes that the worst never 
will happen. Besides, there was Mrs. Fanteague. Coming 
home, she would be in command. Even now, when she 
had not so much as alighted on the windswept wooden plat- 


20 


Seven for a Secret 


form of the branch line station at the Keep, her presence, 
advancing solidly beyond the horizon, comforted him in¬ 
expressibly. There was also Winny, the mare. She would 
look after him. She understood him very well. When he 
jerked the off rein, she swerved to the near, and vice versa. 
She knew every stone, every bit of uneven road, every stray 
scent that crossed it, fine as a thread of cobweb, all the 
walking gradients and the slippery bits. She knew the 
place where the road ran beside the railway line for half 
a mile, just as you came to the Keep—where, if Robert 
had been driving, she would have been “nervy” and relied 
on him, on his voice and his firm hand on the rein—where, 
if any one else had been driving, she would have run away. 
When she had Jonathan in the trap, she did not run away; 
she allowed herself no starts or tremors. If he had left 
things entirely to her, nothing would ever have happened. 
The animal world, as if to make up for the unkindness of 
the inanimate, was kind to him, and as the stocks and stones 
rose up and confounded him, the living creatures com¬ 
forted him, motherly and consoling. 

“Fd come and send you a bit, stepfeyther, only I mun 
see to sheep.” 

“Good-bye, lad, and God bless you,” said Jonathan. 
“I’ll be right enow when the mar’ gets going.” 

But as they swung out on to the moor, he turned and 
glanced at the comfortable lit windows of the farm and 
shook his head sadly and murmured; “Lard, save me to 
lug Mrs. Fanteague back.” 


chapter ii : Robert Rideout 


A SHARP young moon sidled up over the dark eastern 
shoulder of the moor, entangled herself in the black 
manes of the pines which swayed a little in the rising night 
wind, slipped through them like a fish through a torn net, 
and swam free in a large grey sky which was beginning to 
tingle, between the woolly clouds, with a phosphorescence 
of faint starlight. In the last meadow that sloped up, 
rough and tussocky, to the splendid curve of moorland, 
Robert found the sheep, uneasy beneath a dubious heaven. 
They lay with their dim raddled bodies outlined by crisp, 
frosty, faintly luminous grass. The presage of lambing¬ 
time was already in their eyes. 

“Coom then!” said Robert. “Coom then!” 

They rose with a faery crackling of herbage, and pre¬ 
pared to go whither he should lead them. But as he turned 
towards home, a voice, sharp and silvery as the young 
moon, cutting the deep boding silence like a sickle, cried 
from the other side of the bare hazel hedge: 

“Bide for me, ’oot, Bob?” 

He turned, unsurprised and unhurried. 

“What ails you, Gillian, child, nutting in November? 
Dunna you know the owd rhyme?” 

“Say it!” 

“Nut in November, 

Gather doom. 

There’s none will remember 
Your tomb.” 

“You made it,” she cried. 

He laughed shyly. 

“What for do you go to think that-a-way?” 


22 


Seven for a Secret 

“I dunna think. I know. You made it, somewheer in 
that black tously head of yourn. I do believe you’ve got 
a cupboard there, like Mrs. Makepeace keeps the jam in, 
and you keep the tales and songs and what-nots with little 
tickets on ’em, and fetch ’em when you want ’em.” 

She jumped down from the hedge-bank, and two dead 
rabbits in her hand swung across her apron and dabbled 
it with blood. 

“I’se reckon,” said Robert, surveying her with amused 
eyes, “as you’m a little storm in teacup, and no mistake. 
What’s come o’er you to ketch the conies? You’re like 
nought but a little brown coney yourself.” 

She threw the conies on the grass, flung back her plaits, 
set her hands on her slim hips, and said: “I’ve got to catch 
’em. I’m bound to get money for lessons in the music. 
You know that.” 

“What for’s it taken you to want the music?” 

“I mun sing, and play a golden harp like the big man 
played at the Eisteddfod.” 

“What then?” 

“Then I’ll buy a piece of crimson scarlet stuff and 
make me a dress, and put the harp in the cyart along of 
A’nt Fanteague, and go into the world and play to folks 
and make ’em cry.” 

“What for cry?” 

“Cos folk dunna like to cry at a randy. Even at the 
Revivals they only cry when the preachers shout mortal 
loud and the texts come pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, and knock ’em 
silly. If you can make ’em cry when they’d liefer not, 
you know as you’ve got power over ’em.” 

“You’m a queer chyild.” 

“Where did you get that song you learnt me yesterday?” 

“Foot of the rainbow.” 

“Did you make it?” 

“Did I make the moon?” 

“If you wunna tell, you wunna. You’re pig-headed, 
Bob Rideout.” 


Robert Rideout 23 

“I’m as I was made.” 

“I’m sorry for you: but I’ll sing the song. 

“I took my little harp in hand, 

I wandered up and down the land 
Up and down a many years. 

But howsoever far I’d roam, 

I couldna find the smiles or tears 0 
Of whome. 

And every quiet evenfall 
I’d hear a call, 

Like creatures crying in their pain, 

Come whome again!” 

“Not so bad,” said Robert. “Only you dunna make 
it coaxing enough at the end.” 

“I dunna want to. I want to startle folk. I want to 
sing till the bells fall down. I want to draw the tears 
out of their eyes and the money out of their pockets.” 

“Money?” 

“Ah! Bags of it. I canna be a great lady without 
money.” 

“What ails you, to want to be a lady?” 

“I want a sparkling band round my head, and spark¬ 
ling slippers on my feet, and a gown that goes ‘hush! 
hush!’ like growing grass, and them saying, ‘There’s Gil¬ 
lian Lovekin!’ in a whisper.” 

“Much good may it do ye!” 

“And young fellows coming, and me having rare raps 
with ’em, and this one saying: ‘Marry me, Gillian Love- 
kin!’ and that one saying: ‘I love you sore, Miss Juliana!’ 
and me saying: ‘Be off with ye! ’ ” 

“So you wouldna marry ’em?” 

“No danger! I want to hear the folk clapping me and 
joining in the chorus like at the Eisteddfod—and my heart 
going pit-a-pat, and my face all red, knowing they’d cry 
when I made ’em, and laugh when I made ’em, and they’d 
remember Gillian Lovekin to their death day.” 

“Lord save us! You’re going to learn ’em summat 


24 


Seven for a Secret 


seemingly, Jill. You’re summat cruel when you’re set on 
a thing. Curst, I call it.” 

“And when I went to sleep, nights, and couldna bear 
to forget I was me for ten hours; and when I went to 
sleep for good and all, then I wouldna take it to heart so 
much, seeing as they’d remember me forever and ever.” 

She drew up her slim body, which had the peculiar 
wandlike beauty given by a narrow back, sloping shoulders 
and slender hips. The scar on her forehead shone silver 
and relentless in the moonlight. The sheep stirred about 
her like uneasy souls, and the rabbits lying at her feet 
might have been a sacrifice to some woodland goddess. 

Robert looked at her, straight and attentively, for the 
first time in his life. Since his coming to the Gwlfas 
twelve years ago, he had taken her for granted. Now he 
saw her. His dark and dreamy eyes, so well warded by 
their lashes, his brooding forehead and his mouth, that was 
large and beautiful, the lips being laid together with a poise 
that partly concealed their firmness, all seemed to absorb 
her. 

In just the same way he drank in the beauty of the 
countryside, the strange, lovely shapes of trees and rocks. 

While she stood there and thought of her future as she 
had planned it, she slipped into his being like a raindrop 
into the heart of a deep flower. Neither of them knew 
what was happening, any more than the sheep knew whence 
came the unease that always troubled them before snow. 

Robert was as simple, as unself conscious as a child, 
without a child’s egotism. He saw the landscape, not 
Robert Rideout in the landscape. He saw the sheep, not 
Robert Rideout as the kindly shepherd in the midst of the 
sheep. Mountains did not make him think of himself 
climbing. He did not, as nine hundred and ninety-nine 
people out of every thousand do, instinctively look at him¬ 
self when he came to a pond. There was nothing of 
Narcissus in his soul. He seldom wanted to imitate birds, 
but rather to listen more intently. So now he saw Gillian 


Robert Rideout 


25 

with the inward eye, heard her with inward hearing, 
drank her into his soul, but never thought of himself in 
relation to her. He saw her slender waist without his arm 
about it, her mouth unkissed. His eyes lingered on 
shoulder and breast almost as men’s eyes dwell on a 
Madonna, and to him the full-length portrait of Gillian 
was exactly as she herself saw it—alone, self-wrapped, 
self-complete. 

Perhaps he was dreamy. Perhaps he developed late. 
His father had been just the same, only without Robert’s 
poetry. He had not married Abigail till he was forty-five, 
though he had met her in his thirtieth year. Abigail had 
begun by laughing at him. But through those fifteen years 
she heard the deepening passion in his voice, until his least 
word could set her in a flutter. 

Gillian was not sufficiently interested in Robert even 
to laugh at him. She had seen, in her childish fashion, 
the vision desired by all humanity—the vision of a secure 
small nest of immortality built in the crumbling walls of 
time. She wanted to go on being herself even when she 
was dissolved in nothingness. She wanted to make men 
and women hear her, love her, rue her. In the dove-grey, 
cooing silence of the farm, any mental absorption gained 
double force. So, while Simon purred, and Isaiah Lovekin 
made up his accounts, and Robert chopped wood outside, 
and Jonathan went through the vicissitudes of his day, 
Gillian built up this dream, in which she was always in the 
foreground, bathed in light, and masses of vague faces 
filled the background. When Mrs. Fanteague came from 
Silverton bringing news of the world and a great feeling 
of gentility, her dream became so vivid that it kept her 
awake at night. 

Robert, with a long sigh, relinquished her as a bee leaves 
a flower. And like a flower, self-poised but fragile, she 
seemed to shudder a little in her recovery. 

He turned to lead the sheep home, and *hey followed 
him with crisply pattering feet. 


26 


Seven for a Secret 


Gillian picked up the rabbits with one of her supple 
falcon swoops. Disturbed by Robert’s unusual manner, 
she found relief in singing, and as she wandered after the 
sheep in the moonlight, watching her shadow with im¬ 
personal curiosity, she chanted to a tune of her own in a 
high treble that re-echoed against the bluff of moor: 

“I saw seven magpies in a tree, 

One for you and six for me. 

One for sorrow, 

Two for joy, 

Three for a girl, 

Four for a boy, 

Five for silver, 

Six for gold-” 

And down in the hollow by the low-voiced brook, Rob¬ 
ert, in his rich, quiet voice, finished the song: 

“And seven for a secret 
That’s never been told!” 


chapter hi: Aunt Fanteague Arrives 

W HEN you came towards Dysgwlfas Farm from the 
sheep fields, it looked larger than it was, because 
the house was long and narrow, and the loft, with the 
granary and the room where the roots were kept, had been 
built in one with the farm. Beneath the granary was the 
high, square archway, called the Drifthouse, that led into 
the foldyard. In front of the house was the garden, 
where the dove-cote stood, and a stony path, lichened at 
the sides, led up to the house from the double wicket with 
its arch of privet. 

The pattering feet of Robert’s flock passed this gate and 
went on to the foldyard. Gillian, following in the 
leisurely and dreamy manner she had acquired lately, 
pushed open the wicket and went across the crisp grass to 
the parlour window. Looking in, she saw by the light of 
the well-trimmed lamp and the leaping flames that her 
father had come home. He was a person who could not 
come home without everybody knowing it. He had, as 
his sister—Mrs. Fanteague—said, a presence. The house 
re-echoed with his voice, his step. When he sat in his 
armchair by the fire it became a throne, and the parlour 
became an audience chamber. If any one came in, he said 
“Ha!” and they felt found out. In his buying and selling 
of sheep, this “Ha!” did more for him than any amount 
of money. He said it so loudly, so knowingly and so judi¬ 
cially that every flaw in the goods offered leapt into fear¬ 
ful prominence, and the seller, however case-hardened, 
could see nothing else, could feel nothing else but a desire 
to go away with his detected enormity, and hide. Very 
often Mr. Lovekin had not seen half of the things his 
interjection implied, but that did not matter. The legend 


28 Seven for a Secret 

of his acumen was about him like the protecting leaves of 
winter broccoli. Nothing but the best was ever offered to 
him, and he procured the best at reasonable prices. Hence 
he was becoming rich, although he had inherited a derelict 
farm and a debt. His father had possessed neither a pres¬ 
ence nor a voice nor a “Ha!” He had not stood six foot 
six with shoulders to match, nor weighed eighteen stone, 
nor had a patriarchal beard that flowed to his waist. He 
had been a much more industrious man than his son; known 
more about sheep; deserved success. He had failed lament¬ 
ably. His son, riding about the country on his cob, pene¬ 
trating the remote, precipitous hillsides where fat sheep 
were to be had for little money, had become a personality 
and a power. His lightest word was received with respect; 
a seat near the fire was kept for him on winter afternoons 
in the inn parlours; auctioneers had been known to wait 
to begin a sale until his large figure was seen looming in 
the assembly. 

Whatever may be the ideas of civilisation, in wild places 
physical perfection still dominates, as in the days of Saul. 
It may be that, as the fight with natural forces is more 
imminent in the country, it is more obvious that the biggest 
man is likely to last longest, and staying-power is greatly 
admired by country people. It may also be the instinct 
for hero-worship, the desire to have something big set up 
as a sign, something large enough for legends to accumu¬ 
late round. 

How much Isaiah Lovekin guessed of his own incipient 
godhead did not appear. He never commented upon it. 
He never spoke much. Perhaps if he had done so the 
spell would have been broken. He simply profited by it, 
accepted it, grew fat on it. Sometimes there might seem 
to be a roguish twinkle in that dark eye of his, but it was 
difficult to find out what it meant. Usually his monu¬ 
mental reserve was unbroken even by a twinkle, and, like 
some stately promontory, he accepted all that the sea of 
life brought to his feet. Nobody ever questioned his posi- 


29 


Aunt Fanteague Arrives 

tion, nor doubted his ability to live up to it. Only in his 
daughter’s eyes sometimes there was a fleeting look of 
something half-way between mockery and motherhood. It 
had been there even when she looked up at him from her 
cradle, when she had been nothing but a bundle and a grey 
glance, lying so low at the feet of an immense, over¬ 
whelming being. Everybody had seen the look, com¬ 
pounded of pity and laughter. Isaiah had turned to his 
wife, as if for protection. Mrs. Fanteague had said: 
“That’s no Christian child! She’s a changeling. She’ll 
never live.” Mrs. Makepeace was sure it was only a tooth 
coming. Certainly Gillian had managed to live, changeling 
or not. It was Mrs. Lovekin who died, finding it too 
difficult to be the wife of a Deity. 

Gillian, having watched her father sitting before the 
fire, splendid, happy and idle, until her high nose—flat¬ 
tened against the window-pane—was very cold, suddenly 
hooted like an owl and drew back. 

No! He did not jump. If only she could have made 
him jump! She kicked off her clogs, went into the kitchen, 
and startled the sleeping Simon instead. Mrs. Makepeace 
had gone, and the kitchen—shining, tidy, smelling of wet 
soap—was inhabited only by Simon and by the gentle, 
hesitating “tick-tack” of the clock. 

“Quiet!” said Gillian. “Oh, dear sakes, I can hear 
the leaves a-falling on my grave! I’ll even be glad to 
see A’nt Fanteague, Simon, for she do make a stir, O!” 

She washed her face and hands at the pump, and tidied 
her hair at a little glass on the wall. Then she went into 
the parlour, singing in her high and delicious voice: 

“Five for silver, 

Six for gold, 

Seven for a secret-” 

“Ha!” said Isaiah, and she became silent, wondering 
in a kind of hypnotised way what she had done. 

“So you’ve raught back, father?” 


30 


Seven for a Secret 


“Ah.” 

“Bin far?” 

“Over the border.” 

“Whiteladies or Weeping Cross?” 

“Weeping Cross.” 

“Bought anything?” 

“A tuthree.” 

“Seen anybody?” 

“Who should I see?” 

“I mean, anybody fresh?” 

“How you do raven after some new thing, Gillian!” 
“But wasna there anybody but the old ancient people as 
you always see?” 

“There was a dealer from beyond the mountains.” 

She clapped her hands. 

“I wish I’d been there! Was he young?” 

“Middling young.” 

“What was his name?” 

“Elmer.” 

“Could he ride without a saddle?” 

“I didna enquire.” 

“Oh, I wish I’d been there!” 

Isaiah smoked in silence. 

“If I’d been there d’you know what I’d ha’ done?” 
“Not even the Almighty knows that.” 

“I’d ha’ come walking up to him in my new frock that 
is to be, slate-coloured blue like the slatey drake, and my 

hair done up, and beads in it-” 

“Beads?” 

“Glass ones, shiny like diamonds.” 

“Oh!” 

“And I’d ha’ bowed like parson’s wife at the Keep. 
‘Pleased to know you, but no liberties allowed.’ And I’d 
ha’ dared him to ride full gallop without a saddle.” 

“Oh, you would, would ye?” 

“And if he was thrown and killed, I’d say: ‘One fool 
the less!’ But if he did it proper, I’d jump up in front 



31 


Aunt Fanteague Arrives 

and I’d say: ‘Kind sir! Take me out in the world and 
learn me to sing, and I’ll be yours forever, beads and 
slatey frock and all!’ And if he beat me, I’d say nought: 
but if he couldna ride, I’d laugh.” 

“Just as well I didna take you.” 

“Take me next time, father! Do!” 

“Decked like a popinjay, and being gallus with the 
fellers? No! Here you stop, my girl.” 

“Father!” 

“Eh?” 

“When I’ve learnt to sing proper, I can go out into 
the world, canna I?” 

“No.” . 

“Why?” 

“You mun bide, and see to the house.” 

“But Mrs. Makepeace could do that. And if you’ll let 
me go, I’ll come back when you’re aged and old, with the 
palsy and the tic douloureux, hobbling on two sticks and 
tears in your eyes and nobody to love ye! I’ll come in a 
carriage, with silver shoes and a purse of money, and 
maybe a husband and maybe not, and I’ll walk in with a 
sighing of silk and pour out money on the table, and bring 
you oranges and candied peel and sparkly wine and a fur 
coat and summat for the tic douloureux!” 

“Thank you kindly.” 

“So you’ll take me next time?” 

“No.” 

“Well, then, I’ll ask A’nt Fanteague to take me. So 
now!” 

“Best make the toast, and see if lire’s alight in the guest- 
chamber, and look to the oven, for I smell burning.” 

Gillian collapsed, departing almost in tears to the kitchen 
that was so quiet, and the guest-chamber that was quieter 
still. She drew up the sullen lire in the grate, which was 
damp from disuse, and in its fugitive light she surveyed 
the large white bed with its Marcella quilt, the chill 
dressing-table, the clean cold curtains, the polished oilcloth 


Seven for a Secret 


32 

icily gleaming. There were no sounds except the crackling 
of the fire, and the wind soughing a little in the chimney. 
For the first time in her life Gillian was glad her aunt 
was coming. Aunt Fanteague lived in the great world, at 
Silverton itself. There would be plenty of pianos and 
singing masters there, and young men who could ride 
without saddle or bridle and accomplish feats of daring 
and danger at her command. Having drawn the fire up 
to a roaring blaze, she ran downstairs to make the toast. 
Turning a hot red cheek to her father, she said: 

“I wish she’d come!” 

“You do? Ha!” 

“I’m feared it’s happened at long last.” 

“What?” 

“Why—Jonathan.” 

“Oh, Jonathan’ll turn up all right, peart as a robin. 
Accidents he may have, but that’s all. And your A’ntie’s 
along of him, you mind.” 

“Yes, A’ntie’s along of him. Maybe she’ll bring me 
a present.” 

“Maybe you’ve burnt the toast.” 

“Hark! The wicket’s clicked.” 

Gillian was out of the room and the house in a twin¬ 
kling. She submerged her aunt in kisses, while Jonathan 
trundled off to the yard humming, “Safe home, safe 
home in port.” 

“What you want, Juliana,” said Aunt Fanteague, “is 
control.” 

She entered. 

“ Well y Isaiah!” she said. 

She always said this on entering her brother’s house. 
It expressed, among other things, her exasperated disap¬ 
pointment that the place was no better kept than it had 
been last time she came. 

“Ha!” said her brother. But instead of feeling found 
out, Mrs. Fanteague behaved as if she had found him out. 

“I see the big white stone by the wicket has not been 


33 


Aunt Fanteague Arrives 

put in place yet, Isaiah,” she said. “Twelve months ago 
come Christmas Jonathan knocked it out bringing me home 
—and I thank my Redeemer it was no worse! Twelve 
months, Isaiah! Fifty-two weeks! Three hundred and 
sixty-five days! How many hours, Juliana?” 

“Oh, AW!” 

“Where’s your book-learning, child?” 

Mrs. Fanteague sat down in the large chair opposite 
Isaiah—the chair that had been so well brushed and pol¬ 
ished—and Gillian standing between them was like the 
young sickle moon between two of the vast immemorial 
yew trees on the moor. 

“You’re late, sister!” said Isaiah. 

“And well may you say it! And well may I be late! 
What Jonathan wants is two guardian angels forever be¬ 
side him, and he on a leash, with nothing else to do but 
walk along quiet under the shadow of their wings. It 
was into the hedge this side, and into the hedge that! 
Never a stone but we were on to it—and into the hedge 
agen! Then my box fell off, and how it kept on so long 
only the Redeemer knows—for Jonathan tied it. When 
we got well on to the moor, what must the man do but 
drive into the quaking slough, and there we were!” 

Isaiah smiled into his beard. After all, they had arrived. 
People always did—in the long run—when Jonathan drove 
them. 

“Is it froze over?” 

“It is not, Isaiah. Look at my boots! Out I had to 
get. He trod on my umberella. Then I dropped my 
reticule and he trod on that. The mare wouldn’t stir. So 
I said the Nunc Dimittis” (Aunt Fanteague was High 
Church) “and took the butt-end of the whip to her, so 
after a bit we got to the road agen, and I didn’t mind the 
other things near so much. But, seeing as you won’t leave 
this God-’elp place, what you want is to let young Rideout 
drive. Now there’s a man! Nothing said, but the thing 
gets done. If you’d send Rideout, your sister’s bonnet 


34 


Seven for a Secret 


wouldn’t be torn to pieces with hedges and the whip—for 
when Jonathan thinks he’s slashing the mare, it’s your 
sister he’s slashing, Isaiah, every time!” 

Isaiah looked at the fire. A twinkle seemed to tenant 
his eyes for a moment. Perhaps he was thinking that if 
he sent Rideout there would be nothing to discourage Mrs. 
Fanteague from coming very often. 

“And how’s poor Emily?” he said. 

“Poor Emily’s as usual, Isaiah.” 

Emily was, for the time, dismissed. Mrs. Fanteague 
was untying her bonnet strings. She was large, though 
not so large as Isaiah. When her bonnet, which seemed 
to have been built with bricks and mortar, not merely sewn, 
was off and lay in her lap, the likeness to Isaiah became 
more obvious. She had the same fine head, massive but 
low brow, and solid features. Her hair was built up just 
as her bonnet was, and looked like sculptured hair. In it 
she wore massive combs and five large yellow tortoise-shell 
pins. Her dress had the look of being held together only 
by the ferocious tenacity of its buttons, which were made 
of jet. Not that she was fat, but she was large of bone 
and well developed, and her dresses were always tight- 
fitting, after the style of a riding habit. Pinning her collar 
together was a big square brooch of Wedgwood china de¬ 
picting a cross, a young woman and a dove. The sym¬ 
bolism of this had never been explained to Gillian, though 
she had often enquired. It remained, like Isaiah, mys¬ 
terious, capable of many constructions. Cuffs, knitted by 
Emily and trimmed with beads, finished her sleeves, and 
a well-gathered skirt came down to within an inch of the 
ground. She gave the impression, as she sat there, of being 
invulnerable, morally and physically. 

“Would you like to wash you and change your boots, 
A’ntie? There’s a good fire in the guest-chamber.” 

“There is, is there? Well, you’re tempting Providence, 
for coal’s coal and it gets no cheaper. But I don’t say it 
isn’t pleasant.” 


Aunt Fanteague Arrives 35 

“And I filled the boiler, so there’s hot water to wash 
you.” 

“Juliana, you’re improving!” 

Praise from her was infrequent. If she had known the 
reason of the improvement, perhaps she would have with¬ 
held it. 

“Dunna forget the cooling tea and a man that’s sharp- 
set for his’n,” said Isaiah. 

They departed in a whirl of black skirts, coloured 
skirts, reticules, bags and bonnets. 

Isaiah smiled at the fire. He knew very well why Gil¬ 
lian bestowed such affectionate care on her aunt. 

But as Aunt Fanteague did not know, and as she had, 
like many rocky natures, a great, though concealed, crav¬ 
ing for affection, she was touched. She was glad she had 
brought Gillian a present. 

“When I unpack,” she said, as she instinctively moved 
the dressing-table to look for dust underneath, running 
her finger over the polished surfaces, “there might be 
something for a good girl.” 

Gillian flushed, partly with pleasure, but mostly with 
annoyance at being treated in so babyish a way. Was she 
not Miss Juliana Lovekin, of Dysgwlfas? But it was 
not politic to show her annoyance. As the most practical 
way of getting nearer to the desired fairing, she began to 
uncord the box, which had been carried up the back stairs 
by Robert. It was the same yellow tin box in which Mrs. 
Fanteague’s bridal raiment had been packed when she had 
left the farm on that long-ago summer day with the man 
of her choice. 

This phrase was literally true, for Mr. Fanteague had 
had no choice in the matter. The box still looked won¬ 
derfully new, considering that Jonathan had fetched it 
once or twice every year across the moor. It had lost much 
less of its early freshness than Mrs. Fanteague had. Gil¬ 
lian’s firm, pointed fingers undid the knots, and at last the 
lid, painted blue inside, was lifted to reveal tissue paper, 


36 


Seven for a Secret 


the black silk Sunday dress, best bonnet, gloves, and braided 
cape which Aunt Emily’s nervous fingers had folded. 
Underneath lay a small packet. 

“I must tell you, my dear, it isn’t new,” said Aunt 
Fanteague. “But it’s jewellery. And I know the vanity 
of your heart, Juliana.” 

“Jewellery! Oh, A’ntie!” 

“You can undo it, if you’ve a mind.” 

Gillian most certainly had a mind. She undid it. And 
there lay a small cornelian heart with a golden clasp 
through which a ribbon was to be slipped. It was won¬ 
derful—a fairy gift. It had colour, which she loved, and 
romance, and it was her first ornament. 

“A’ntie! When you’re ancient and old, when there’s 
none to comfort ye, I’ll mind this locket! And howsoever 
far away I am, I’ll come to ye! I will that! And I’ll 
try to keep my nails clean, too, because you say they 
werrit ye. See! Dunna it look nice agen my frock? 
Have you got ever a piece of ribbon I could tie it on 
with?” 

Aunt Fanteague found a bit of black velvet, took up 
the candle, and said it was time to go down. 

“And now,” said Isaiah, “let me hear the news of poor 
Emily. She’s well, you say?” 

“I say that poor Emily’s as well as can be expected in 
her peculiar situation.” 

“Does she eat and sleep?” 

“She eats but poorly, and dreams.” 

“Dreams, A’ntie? Oh, I wish I could dream! What 
does she dream?” 

“She dreams of angels.” 

“Ha!” 

Isaiah had a great idea of looking after his womenfolk. 
He always asked particularly after their physical well¬ 
being. If that was satisfactory, nothing else mattered. 

“Ha! If she dreamt of a babby, it ’ud be better! 
That’s the dream for Emily! Always was!” 


37 


Aunt Fanteague Arrives 

He gave his rare, tremendous laugh—the laugh which, 
as legend said, had once frightened Dosset’s bull so much 
that it had omitted to toss Isaiah. 

Mrs. Fanteague rose. 

“Toast there may be, and cooling tea, and a welcome 
of sorts inside, and a cold wind drawing over the moor, 
but out I go, Isaiah, if you speak indecent. Before the 
child, too!” 

“I amna a child, A’ntie! And I like to hear about— 
A’nt Emily.” 

“Sit down, sister. Fm mum.” 

Mrs. Fanteague, after suitable hesitation, sat down. 

“How old is Emily?” asked Isaiah, who was not good 
at dates. 

“Emily’s forty-one.” 

“Well, it’s not past praying for, then. You mind when 
Bob Rideout was born, Abigail was forty-three. And you 
couldna find a stronger, lustier-” 

Mrs. Fanteague arose again. 

“Oh, sit down, sister! I’m dumb as a corpse!” 

“Is poor A’nt Emily still in love, A’ntie?” 

This romance of Emily’s was a perennial source of 
interest to Gillian. 

“Yes, my dear.” 

“And does Mr. Gentle still call?” 

“Regular as clockwork. More regular than any new¬ 
fangled clock.” 

“But they inna going to get married?” 

“I don’t know, my dear.” 

“What does A’nt Emily think?” 

“She wouldn’t consider it ladylike to think anything till 
Mr. Gentle spoke.” 

“And dunna he?” 

“No, my dear. Not like that. He says it’s blowing 
up for rain, or there’s a peck of March dust, or what a 
sight of apple blow, or as it was a pleasant sermon. And 
he reads. We’re doing Crabbe now. And once he said 



38 Seven for a Secret 

he liked lilac, when Aunt Emily had a lilac dress on. But 
that’s all.” 

“Ha!” said Isaiah, and buried his face in his cup. 

“Oh, A’ntie, how awful!” 

“No, my dear, it’s very pleasant.” 

“Awful for poor A’nt Emily! Coddling about year 
after year! I’d want Mr. Gentle to fall down on his 
knee-bones-” 

“He’s a little bit rheumatic, Juliana.” 

“He should ha’ done it when he could. To fall down 
on his knees and say: ‘I love ye!’ And get up quick and 
kiss me till I couldna breathe.” 

Mrs. Fanteague looked at her brother accusingly. 

“Like father, like child!” she said. 

“And then for him to say: ‘Fix the day! Fix it! Fix 
it!’ And me all in a fluster, like the ducks when I catch 
’em. And away to church. And into the trap. And off 
to the station! And him saying: ‘You be mine forever 
and ever.’ Only I dunna think Mr. Gentle would do. 
Can he drive and ride without a saddle? Durst he walk 
along the top of a waggon o’ hay when it’s going quick, 
like Robert does?” 

Mrs. Fanteague smiled. It was not easy for her to 
smile, because her face had set in other lines. 

“Juliana,” she said, “if ever you see Mr. Gentle, you’ll 
understand. No words of mine can make you. Mr; 
Gentle’s one that never has a speck on him, and never 
loses his dignity; he’s a real polished gentleman.” 

“Oh, dear sores! I shouldna like him. He’d kiss so 
soft.” 

Isaiah came to life. 

“What d’ye know about kisses, my girl? Has Robert 
been playing the fool? I’ll give him the best-” 

“You wouldna find it so easy! Robert’s strong. But 
he hanna kissed me nor wanted to. I never thought of 
it afore you said.” 

She began to look dreamy. 




39 


Aunt Fanteague Arrives 

“I’d like it to be said as Gillian Lovekin married young 
and had a very sweet nature, like they said about Great- 
Aunt Amy Lovekin.” 

“Did you take them pastries out of oven?” enquired 
Isaiah. 

“Oh, dearie, dearie me!” 

She fled to the kitchen, returning slowly. 

“Spoilt, I suppose?” 

She nodded. 

“Fetch ’em!” 

They came. Twenty-four cheese-cakes and some pastry 
“Angers,” all of ebony-black. 

“How much stuff went to ’em?” 

“Pound o’ flour, half dripping, three oranges, sugar, two 
eggs-” 

“What ’ud that cost, sister?” 

“Well, as you’ve got your own fowl, maybe about a 
shilling.” 

“Fetch a shilling, Gillian.” 

“Oh, father! Not a coney shilling?” 

“Ah.” 

“But that’s a music lesson, father!” 

“Fetch it. It’ll learn you not to get dreamy and 
moithered like poor Emily. You be glad I’m too lazy to 
leather ye.” 

Gillian retired to the kitchen in tears. Her aunt, com¬ 
ing out to “dry” while she washed-up, was prepared to 
comfort the weeping penitent. 

But instead of a penitent she saw, when she entered, 
two pillows placed in chairs at the table. One was dressed 
in Isaiah’s best coat and hat, the other in Gillian’s summer 
frock, a lace curtain for a veil, and the cornelian heart. 

“It’s A’nt Emily’s wedding breakfast!” said Gillian. 
“Mr. Gentle’s spoken at long last!” 



chapter iv : Gillian Asks for a Kiss 



UNT FANTEAGUE was to stay a fortnight. She 


-aTV. had been at Dysgwlfas a week before Gillian found 
courage to think of asking her about the visit to Silverton. 
Now she was desperate, because, when she got up at seven 
and peeped into the outer world, the sky was soft and 
woolly with snow, and a few flakes already wandered past 
the window—which meant that Aunt Fanteague would 
hasten her departure lest, as she said, “a worse thing befall 
her.” At Dysgwlfas people were often snowed-up for a 
week at a time, and Christmas drew near, and it would 
never do for Mrs. Fanteague to be away at Christmas, for 
then poor Emily and Mr. Gentle could not keep the fes¬ 
tival together, since they would be unchaperoned. 

“This day, if ever!” said Gillian, breaking the ice in 
her jug and wondering, as she washed her face, how she 
would break the ice in Aunt Fanteague’s mind. 

As she lit the kitchen fire she thought how lovely it 
would be to live at a grand place like the Drover’s Arms 
at Weeping Cross, where the Farmer’s Ordinary was, of 
which her father told her carefully censored tales when he 
came back from fairs and auctions. 

While she sat by the sudden blaze made by an armful 
of heather and chips, and drank her cup of tea, she read 
the serial in the weekly paper her father took in. It told 
how a young and innocent girl, not very much prettier 
than herself, went to London and was betrayed, and lived 
in luxury and sin, and then died. She thought it would 
be almost worth dying in order first to see and hear and 
experience all the wonderful things the heroine saw and 
heard and felt. “Betrayed!” What food for curiosity! 
What depths of horror! It recalled old tales, and detec- 


40 


Gillian Asks for a Kiss 41 

tive stories (of which Robert possessed two), and Judas 
Iscariot. It was wicked, deliciously wicked, and it implied 
a sort of vicarious wickedness in the betrayed one. It had 
a thrill. She had lived, this girl, for nearly a year in a 
“palatial suite” somewhere near a place called Piccadilly. 
Gillian supposed that this was where the pickle came from, 
which occasionally varied the home-made red cabbage. She 
went to theatres. She wore satin, jewels, swansdown. She 
was called “Madame.” She was kissed. She went about 
in a motor-car marvellously upholstered, with the man who 
betrayed her, who was over six feet tall in his (expen¬ 
sively) stockinged feet, and had a long drooping moustache 
and a fur coat. Gillian was sure he could have walked 
about on the most toppling load of hay without the slight¬ 
est inconvenience. Delightful Iscariot! There he was, 
within a few hours’ journey of Silverton. If once she 
could get there, she would only have to step into a train, 
and in such a little while she would be in London. The 
rest, no doubt, followed mechanically. 

“Ask her, I will, this very day! She may say she’s 
deaf. She may read a book. She may walk out of the 
room. But I’ll ask her. If I can get to Sil’erton, I can 
get to London.” 

She surveyed herself in the kitchen mirror. 

“I’m not so bad. And if I learn to sing that’ll be one 
to me, for this here Julia couldna sing a note.” 

While she stirred the porridge, she saw a vision of her¬ 
self in the slate-coloured dress (that was to be), with a 
feather hat made of the slatey drake, walking in high- 
heeled satin shoes past shops full of yellow, square bottles 
of piccalilli. 

“Dreamy!” said her father, as he knocked the earth 
from his boots and came in to breakfast. “Now look 
lively, my girl, for the sooner I start the more chance to 
get back early. It’s white-over now, and I’ve got to get 
a hundred sheep back afore night.” 

“Is it set in for snow, Isaiah?” asked Mrs. Fanteague. 


42 


Seven for a Secret 


“Ah.” 

“Then I pack. I’ll catch the last train from the 
Keep.” 

“A short visit, sister!” 

“Weather’s weather, Isaiah. If I stay, maybe the thaw 
won’t come till after Christmas. And Emily’d be all 
alone.” 

“There’d be Mr. Gentle, A’ntie.” 

“Aunt Emily wouldn’t dream of asking a gentleman to 
the place in my absence,” said Aunt Fanteague. 

Gillian opined that there were a good many different 
kinds of women in the world, for what could be more 
different than the minds of Emily and Julia? And she 
herself was like neither. 

Isaiah swallowed his breakfast, went to the door and 
shouted for Robert. 

“Be I to come, sir? Or stepfather?” 

“No, I must make shift, for Jonathan must take Mrs. 
Fanteague. I’ll ride the cob, and call for Dosset’s lad— 
he’s got a pony. He’ll give me a hand with the sheep.” 

“I’d sooner Robert drove me,” observed Mrs. Fan¬ 
teague. 

“Robert’s got to stop. The threshing-engine may come 
any minute. If it does, Jonathan’s no manner use.” 

“Mother says, would you kindly send her as far as the 
Maiden? Mrs. Thatcher’s took bad. They want mother 
to bide the night over.” 

“And welcome. Jonathan can send her.” 

Isaiah looked at Robert, hesitated, then stepped out into 
the foldyard. 

“Oh, Rideout!” he said, with less than his customary 
ease, “no offence, but you’ll bear in mind as my girl’s for 
none but a farmer, or higher.” 

Robert smiled. His smile was slow, sad, a little ironical, 
but sweet. His eyes did not always smile in unison with 
it. They did not smile now. There was criticism and a 
spice of mockery in them. 


Gillian Asks for a Kiss 43 

“Nothing less than a lord, sir!” he said. “But what 
is to be, will be.” 

“Whatever’s to be, it’s not to be cowman-shepherd, 
seesta?” 

“Ah! I see, sir. And if so be I’d raised my eyes to 
your little maid, Fd lower ’em agen. But I want no 
woman.” 

“What do you want, lad?” asked Isaiah, with some 
compunction. 

“My time to myself, sir,” replied Robert, and turned 
towards the stable. 

“His time to himself and he wants no woman!” 

Gillian laughed as she washed the dishes, having lis¬ 
tened at the kitchen window. 

Robert had not, previously, seemed worth captivating. 
She took him for granted. Now, as she watched his sturdy 
and independent figure cross the fold, she became conscious 
of him as a young man to be enslaved. 

“Good-bye, sister!” said Isaiah. “There’s a box of 
them winter pears, and the red apples you like, and Gillian 
can gather some eggs for ye, and Robert’ll get you a couple 
of fowl. Tell Emily to dream what I said!” 

With a shout of laughter he swung into the saddle. 

“Good-bye, Isaiah,” said Mrs. Fanteague. “God will¬ 
ing, I shall see Silverton shops to-night.” 

“A’nt Fanteague willing, I shall see ’em soon!” thought 
Gillian. 

“Shall I give you a hand, packing, A’ntie?” she asked. 

“No, child.” 

“Shall I kindle a bit of fire in your room?” 

“I’m not so nesh as to need a fire to pack by, my dear.” 

“Could you sit by this ’un then? I want to ask you 
summat particular.” 

“Oh.” 

“A’ntie! Let me come and bide with you a bit! 
Please, A’ntie!” 


44 


Seven for a Secret 


“For why?” 

“To learn to make that grand Simnel cake, and bake a 
ham the old-fashioned way, and plain-sew.” 

“And go shopping and look for a young man?” 

“Oh, A’ntie! ” 

“Well, maybe it ud liven up poor Emily. I’ll con¬ 
sider it.” 

“Not too long! Life goes over. ‘Nut in November 
nut for doom.’ ” 

“Who told you that?” 

“Robert.” 

“Do you like that young man?” 

“Oh, all right! He’s nought but cowman-shepherd, 
though.” 

“That’s right, child. Never demean yourself.” 

Aunt Fanteague became ruminative. There was a 
young organist at Silverton, also a bachelor doctor and 
an unmarried curate. Aunt Fanteague dreamed. How 
surprised the ladies who now despised her would be! If 
it was the curate, she might even be asked to decorate the 
pulpit instead of doing the two dark windows by the door. 
If it was the doctor, the little doses of bromide for Emily 
after Mr. Gentle’s visits would be prescribed free. If it 
was the organist—well, it had better not be the organist. 

“Well, my dear, if you’re a good girl, and your father 
raises no objection, you shall come for a bit in the New 
[Year!” 

“Oh, A’ntie, I do love you!” 

“That you don’t, Gillian! But so long as you respect 
me, I ask no more.” 

“How long can I come for?” 

“That depends.” 

“A month? Two? Three?” 

“Maybe a month.” 

“When, A’ntie?” 

“When the snow’s gone. January, maybe.” 


Gillian Asks for a Kiss 45 

“I’ll buy some cashmere with my coney money and make 
me a frock. And I’ll kill the slatey drake.” 

“Don’t bedizen yourself, Gillian. You know what poor 
Emily says of a lady.” 

“What?” 

“You can tell a lady, because nobody knows she’s there.” 

“But slatey colour’s as meek as mice, A’ntie!” 

“It’s according as it’s worn. Now write me the label 
while I pack.” 

As Gillian wrote the label, she thought how it would 
look. 

“Miss Juliana Lovekin. Silverton.” 

“Miss Juliana Lovekin. London.” 

She preferred the last. 

After dinner, Jonathan, with resignation in his manner, 
brought round the trap. The eggs and fruit were packed 
in. Mrs. Makepeace sat on the tin box at the back. Jona¬ 
than observed: 

“It’s snow for our pillow to-night, Mrs. Fanteague, 
ma’am. Ah! that’s what it’ll be, snow for our pillow!” 

Mrs. Fanteague waved resignedly, and they drove away 
through the thickening snow. 

“Please, God, take care of A’ntie so that I can get to 
London soon!” prayed Gillian. 

The simplicity with which people express themselves 
when there is no one to hear but the Almighty must often 
entertain Him. 

“Robert!” called Gillian. “Robert Rideout O!” 

“Well, Miss Gillian?” 

“What have I done to be treated so stiff ? ” 

“Nought.” 

“Well, then, come your ways in. We’ll have a randy, 
same as we always do when they’re out.” 

“We didn’t ought.” 

“Didn’t ought’s in Dead Man’s Yard. Come on! 
We’ll make toffee. There’s all the market butter. We’ll 


46 Seven for a Secret 

play C I spy’ all over the house. Then I’ll help you to milk. 
Then we’ll have tea. You can finish outside while I get 
it. They’ll neither of ’em be back before seven or eight. 
It’ll be cosy as cosy. We’ll pretend it’s our house and 
I’m your missus.” 

Robert flushed and turned away, suddenly shy, perhaps 
because of Isaiah, perhaps because of his consciousness of 
Gillian in the meadow. 

“No!” he said. 

“Yes! I’m going away come New Year.” 

He turned quickly. 

“Where?” 

“To Sil’erton. I’ll tell you at tea. Now for the 
toffee!” 

She was going away. This would be the last time of 
childish romping. When she came back she would be a 
lady. She might be engaged—even married. He could 
put in longer time at the wood-chopping to-morrow. He 
scraped his boots and came in. 

“Butter first!” said Gillian. She ran to the dairy where 
the round yellow pats—all decked with swans—lay on 
their clean white cloth. Into the saucepan went two pats, 
for Gillian never believed in doing things by halves. 

“You stir! You’re an old steady-goer!” said she. 

Robert scrubbed his hands in the back kitchen and 
stirred. They were nice hands, large and dependable and 
strong. What they undertook, they finished. The ani¬ 
mals on the farm loved them. People with whom he shook 
hands at market felt a kind of promise of protection in 
them, and they would have trusted him with their lives 
or even their bank-books. They were hands that might 
have helped to make him a great surgeon. The local vet. 
had noticed them, and had offered to take him into part¬ 
nership. But Robert refused. He did not like to see crea¬ 
tures in pain oftener than he could help. Also, he had 
his dream to dream on Dysgwlfas Moor—his dream, which 
was that of Dysgwlfas itself. Day after day, in the early 


Gillian Asks for a Kiss 


47 


morning or after his work was done, he brooded upon the 
waste as it lay beneath his gaze, self-wrapped, conning its 
own secret, dreaming of itself and its dark history, its 
purple-mantled past and its future clothed in vaporous 
mystery. The colour that comes on the heather when it 
is in full flower, which is like the bloom on a plum, was 
in his dream. The rumour that runs, in warm, dark 
spring evenings, from the peering leaf down the veins of 
the stalk, to the waiting flower sleeping in the root—a 
rumour of rain and misty heat and the melodious lan¬ 
guors of a future June; this, too, was in his dream. Wave 
on profound wave of beauty broke over him, submerged 
him. The wonder and terror of it came to his soul with 
a keenness that darted from the colours and perfumes like 
a sword hidden in roses. Far beyond the rim of blue was 
still the moorland—the secret moorland, with its savage 
peace. There the curlews cried, eerie and lonely, in 
spring. Thence the wind drew, urgent, vital. And 
always, whether he was at market or chapel, in the farm 
or the inn, which lay alone out on the moor, he heard— 
whatever the weather or the season—as it were a long way 
off, and far down in his consciousness—the roar of the 
winter wind over the bleak, snowy acres of Dysgwlfas. 
He was aware that an almost vocal sympathy existed be¬ 
tween the place and himself. There was something he 
must do for it, but he could not guess what it was. Also 
he felt a vague portent in the winter country. There was 
something waiting for him there in the future—some 
deed, some high resolve. Was it Death? It was mys¬ 
terious as death, he thought. All his days he walked in this 
dream, which did not hinder his deft hands nor his quick 
feet, and continually the country spun more threads be¬ 
tween itself and him. 

He would sit dreaming by his mother’s fire as if he had 
been fairy-led, or, as Jonathan said, as if he had been 
“comic-struck.” And now Gillian was finding a place in 
his dream. Softly, relentlessly as a leaf-boring bee, she 


48 Seven for a Secret 

was impressing herself on the purple twilight of his un- 
written poetry. 

As to what all this meant he was doubtful. He must 
bide his time. He could always do that, without being 
either lethargic or futile. And when the waiting was 
over, he could act. 

At the present moment it was time to act, for the toffee 
was ready. 

“Dunna forget to put the tin in cold water, Gillian!” 
he reminded her. 

They played “I spy” till it cooled. Then it was 
milking-time. There was laughter in the cowhouse and 
milking was soon done. Then, with one of her weird owl 
cries, she ran across the dark fold into the kitchen. 

It glowed, for Robert had made up the fire. She set 
the table with the best china, brought out cranberry jelly, 
new bread, lemon cheese, visitor’s tea. She put on her best 
frock, put up her hair, and picked a scarlet geranium from 
the window to wear in it. She would be as gay, as pretty 
and as kind as she could. It wasn’t nice of her father to 
tell him he was only a cowman. And perhaps, if she 
looked really pretty, Robert would kiss her! That would 
be good practice for the future. Isaiah had forbidden all 
“May-games.” Kissing was certainly a May-game. But 
then—Robert had such a nice mouth. Now that she con¬ 
sidered it attentively, it was remarkably nice. 

She went to the door. Snow was falling thickly now, 
whirling softly, coming in large flakes. She could see 
Robert’s lantern in the stable, and his shadow on the white 
wall. 

“Bob!” 

He came, smoothing his roughened, snowy hair. 

“Now! I’m missus. You’re maister.” 

“I’m cowman-shepherd,” said Robert. “And you’re the 
maister’s daughter. And only a farmer’s good enough, but 
you might consider a lord.” 

“Oh, Bob! You are unkind. I didna say it.” 


Gillian Asks for a Kiss 49 

“You think it. You know right well you’d never marry 
a farm labourer.” 

“Maybe, if—if the labourer was called—Robert Ride¬ 
out O!” 

“You’re a jill-flirt, my dear, and that’s all about it. 
Gillian jill-flirt!” 

“Pretend, Robert!” 

“There’s danger in pretending.” 

She sulked. 

“This is a good tea,” observed Robert. “And I’m sure 
it’s very charitable of you, miss!” 

“Don’t you dare mock me!” 

“I amna. I’m enjoying meself.” 

He stretched comfortably. His lean, strong, pleasant 
face was happy in the firelight. His boots steamed. The 
snow-wind soughed fitfully in the chimney. Gillian, de¬ 
mure in the dignity of having her hair up, poured out tea 
and did the honours. 

Through his lashes Robert observed her; saw her lovely, 
wilful, remote; wanted to conquer and possess. 

“I’d thank you not to look at me so fierce! ” she laughed. 

“I’d thank you for some more tea,” said Robert, “and 
some of that nice cake.” 

“Oh, Bob! You hanna come to see me a bit! You’re 
after what you can get!” 

“Ah! That’s the tune of it!” said Robert, lying splen¬ 
didly. “Jelly, please, mum!” 

After tea she sat on the hearthrug and told him her 
dreams—some of them. She told him how she would 
dress when she sang at an Eisteddfod, and as she looked 
up, lit with new beauty, he suddenly found out what it 
was he wanted to do. Pennillions! He would make pen- 
nillions about the moor, and in the midst of them should 
be Gillian Lovekin. He did not know quite what pen¬ 
nillions were, nor how to make them, but he could learn. 
He could walk over the mountains to the abode of some 


50 


Seven for a Secret 


Eisteddfod singer, and learn. Here was the way to express 
all those strange things, those wild and dim and tender 
thoughts, that invaded his soul and would not let him rest. 
When he had given them house-room, when he had made 
garments of song for them, they would not cry out on 
him so. And secretly, unknown even to herself, Gillian 
should be the bright centre of these dim pictures, the flower 
in the rocky cavern of his poetry. 

“Seven for a secret!” he murmured. 

“Now then! No talking to mommets! What is it?” 
cried Gillian. 

“Nought—nought.” 

One must not make love to the master’s daughter, nor 
enthrone her in a poem, nor make poems. He reflected 
with amusement that the time in which he would make 
songs in his mind would be paid for by Isaiah; that the 
moor all round the farm, which had inspired him, was 
Isaiah’s; that their central beauty would be Isaiah’s only 
child. 

“It’ll take a deal of overtime to make up for all that, 
I doubt!” he thought. His smile stirred Gillian’s curi¬ 
osity. 

“Tell! Tell!” 

“No. I canna tell ye.” 

“Summat you’re going to do?” 

“Maybe.” 

“For me?” 

“In a sort of a way it’ll be all for you.” 

“Oh, Bob!” 

“Now say all about what coloured gowns you’ll get 
when you’re a rich lady.” 

They sat in the firelight, happy, gay. Any one looking 
through the snow-fingered window would have thought 
them lovers, not knowing the barriers of class and wealth 
between them. 

Seven o’clock. 

“I mun go now, Gillian. Thank you kindly.” 


Gillian Asks for a Kiss 51 

“We shanna have another time like this before I go 
away.” 

“Never, maybe.” 

“Robert!” 

“Well?” 

“Pretend!” 

“What?” 

“Pretend we’re-” she whispered. 

“Pretending’s no good.” 

She held up a glowing cheek. She was bent on adven¬ 
ture. 

“You can take one, Robert!” 

But Robert’s face was hard. It smiled no more; there 
was no sweetness in it. She did not guess that it was his 
hardest battle yet. 

“When I want a kiss,” he said, “I’ll ask for it.” 

He was gone. 

Gillian flung herself on the hearthrug, raging, sobbing. 

“Oh, I wanted him to kiss me! I wanted to know what 
it was like! I’ll pay him out for this! Oh, dearie, dearie 
me; suppose they’re all like Robert!” 

She was in despair. She could not think how the inno¬ 
cent Julia (who never dreamt of asking for kisses, but 
always screamed and said, “Unhand me, sir!”) had had 
love affairs. 

“I don’t believe Julia was all that much prettier than 
me!” she sobbed. “But seemingly it’s them as don’t ask 
don’t want, and them as do ask can’t have!” 



chapter v: Robert Writes Two Letters 


HE Makepeace kitchen was even more miraculously 



1 neat than most country kitchens. The saucepans and 
frying-pans looked as if they could never by any possibility 
have been used. The tiles had the soft polish given by 
daily washing with milk and water. The open grate 
shone smooth and immaculate as a fine lady’s shoe. The 
check tablecloth of red and blue revealed, when folded 
back for culinary operations, a table of honeycomb white¬ 
ness. The lustre jugs, the Broseley plates and Coalport 
teapot gleamed from the dresser. The eight-day wall- 
clock of inlaid oak, with the soothing tick and the chime 
that sounded as if it were made of pale gold, was rich 
with satiny polish. Everything seemed to be there to 
satisfy Mrs. Makepeace’s love of cleaning. Things were 
cleaned not because they needed it, but because it was 
“their day.” The result was that Jonathan and Robert 
appeared as wild hill men of some earlier race strayed into 
the trim residence of an elf. 

They sat, on an evening in mid-January, one on each 
side of the fire. Mrs. Makepeace was at the farm, help¬ 
ing Gillian to pack. The thaw had come, and the path 
from cottage to farm was full of large dark patches where 
the snow had melted. The jessamine bush by the door 
showed bright green points, and the lingering afterglow 
was green beyond the window. 

Robert looked across the room into the pale sky, and the 
pelargonium with the white eye, that stood beside the one 
with scented leaves against the muslin curtain of the lower 
half of the window, returned his gaze limpidly. There 
was something of Gillian, he thought, in its wistful bold¬ 
ness. He called it, to himself, “peartness” and “bashful- 


52 


Robert Writes Two Letters 53 

ness,” and he began to make a poem about it, humming 
beneath his breath as he whittled thatching pegs. The 
sticks for these lay in a pile on the rug, which was one of 
Mrs. Makepeace’s own manufacture—of bright-coloured 
wools with the word “Welcome” in the centre. They 
were using their pocket-knives, of large and practical make. 
The potatoes for supper simmered gently, hanging above 
the fire, and a stockpot on the hob gave out a good herby 
odour. 

Jonathan paused in his work and looked at Robert for 
a long time, his mouth a little open. 

“So she’s going?” 

Robert nodded. 

“The missus ’ere,” said Jonathan, with a backward jerk 
of his thumb towards his wife’s sacking apron hanging on 
the door, “gave me so to understand.” 

Jonathan was so used to being watched and guarded by 
his wife that he lived in a perpetual sense of her immi¬ 
nence. Whether she was away at market, when the door 
was tenanted by her apron and sunbonnet, or at the wash- 
tub, when her cloak and hat were there, she was always 
present to him. 

“Ah! She says, ‘When they shake their wings, it goes 
hard, but they wunna come back till they break their 
wings.’ ” 

On the upper half of the window Robert saw a picture 
of Gillian in the slatey dress, which was real to him be¬ 
cause she had described it, lying as he had often seen a 
wild duck lie, with one broken wing trailing out beside it. 

“We mun see to it as she dunna.” 

“I reckon it’ll be me to drive her to the station to- 
morrow-day, Bob?” 

“No; me.” 

Jonathan fell into a seemingly mystical contemplation 
of his pegs. The clock registered a quarter of an hour. 

“Flocks, hill pasture, a new shippen and a sight of 
money in the bank, so they do say!” he remarked. 


Seven for a Secret 


54 


Robert came out of a dream of wild duck and rose- 
coloured pelargoniums. 

“Money? What money?” 

“Money as young Gillian Lovekin’ll get when the 
maister goes.” 

“Money,” said Robert, going on with his work, “is 
nought but dung.” 

“Dear sores, man! It buys all but Paradise. And 
some say it buys even that.” 

“Can it buy love?” 

“So they do say!” Jonathan chuckled. 

“Where did they say that?” 

“At the public—the ‘Naked Maid/ ” 

“I dunna like that name. Why dunna they say ‘The 
Mermaid’s Rest,’ like the sign says?” 

“Well, lad, there she is over the door, shameless as the 
Woman o’ Babylon, mother-naked to the waist. We call 
’er what she is. Pm thankful she’s got some decent scales. 
She’s not so ondecent as Eve in my poor mother’s Bible. 
It’s little wonder to me as Adam went wrong. Now if 
Eve had bought a calico chemise and a pair o’ stays and 
a tuthree petticoats and a nice print dress and apern, there’d 
ha’ been no such May-games with serpents and apples and 
what-not. Maybe their eldest would ha’ bin a decent lad 
and brought up a family close by the old people, and 
there’d never ha’ bin niggers then.” 

“Why ever not?” 

“Cain’s love-children were the beginning of the nig¬ 
gers.” 

Where Jonathan had gained his Scriptural (and apocry¬ 
phal) knowledge was a mystery. This, and the legendary 
lore of the countryside, formed the basis of the tales for 
which he was famous. 

“Paint the wench out, I say, or paint a bodice in. It 
draws the eye like that. It’s bad for the lads. For till 
they get married and find out what a poor ornary thing 


Robert Writes Two Letters 55 

an ooman is, the lads think she’s summat grand and 
curious.” 

Suddenly, in the midst of the dream of wild duck and 
pelargoniums, Gillian’s face swam up on the green sky 
with the pale, lissom body of the mermaid on the sign. 
Robert got up, threw the pegs on the floor, and walked 
up and down the little room. Two strides and a half. 
Turn. Two strides and a half. Turn. He must stop 
this garrulous old voice, or lead it elsewhere. 

“Tell about the mermaid coming first!” he said. 

“Washed ashore at Aberdovey. Ah! That’s what 
came to pass. High tides they get at Aberdovey, time and 
agen. This was a spring tide like none’s seen since. A 
mort of queer shells and seaweed came in on that tide, 
and coloured fishes and sea flowers from countries far 
away. And her. There she lay in a swound among the 
green weed, and a fisherman found her and went nigh 
mad with love. So she wiled him and she bewitched him, 
and she sang at him: 

“‘Back to the sea, fisherman! Back to the sea!’” 

“‘No danger!’ says he. And he kisses her. 

“ ‘Put me in fresh watter, then,’ she says, ‘so long as 
it is watter.’ 

“ ‘What’ll you give me?’ he says. 

“‘My love for one night!’ 

“‘But you’re a cold mermaid. You canna love!’ 

“‘I’ll come mortal for one night!’ 

“So she came mortal for one night. And in the grey 
dawn he chucked her into the river. And she swam up¬ 
stream to the top of a mountain, and crept across to the 
spring of another stream, and so to another agen, and at 
last she was at Dysgwlfas inn, just where the little gyland 
goes down to the stream. And she sang at the inn-keeper, 
and wiled him away. Some say they went down to Severn, 
and so to the sea. But they never heard tell of the inn¬ 
keeper agen, only they found a bit of old sea-money in the 


56 


Seven for a Secret 


shallows. Some say as she was seen on the moor with a 
shepherd that knew a charm to keep her mortal for ever. 
But anyway, a sign-painter put her on the sign-board, and 
there she be.” 

“She was Gillian!” thought Robert. This braving of 
circumstance, this luring of men, this boldness and elusive¬ 
ness, were all Gillian, and the starting-out to-morrow to 
conquer the world was very like the mermaid’s journey. 
Would he might be that shepherd at the end! He knew 
so well what she wanted, and he was powerless to give it 
her. He could only put his soul into a poem and enthrone 
her there. Would she care? He snapped his finger and 
thumb. 

“Not that!” he said, and began to love her. 

“Laws, lad! you nearly made me cut meself!” 

Jonathan whittled always in fear of ultimate dissolu¬ 
tion. 

Quick steps came through the slush. With a scraping 
and rubbing of shoes, Abigail came in, and immediately 
began to get supper ready. 

“Well, missus! Packed and labelled?” asked Jonathan. 

A noticeable stillness came upon Robert. His brown 
hands lay motionless on his knees. His eyes waited on 
his mother’s face. 

She was hindered in her dialogue by the supreme neces¬ 
sity of watching Jonathan. No guardian angel with a 
sinner, rifleman with a target or cat with a bird could 
have been more tense and absorbed than she was when 
Jonathan wielded a knife. Each time he picked up a stick 
and began to hack bits from one side to make a firm stay 
for the cord she leaned a little forward, working her 
mouth with each cut, unable to speak. Then, as he re¬ 
lapsed into the less dangerous task of marking out a slight 
groove round the stick, she would relax. Finally, when 
he flung the peg on to the heap, she would sigh, smile, and 
take up her parable. So it was only in scattered sentences 
that Robert heard how the new dress fitted; how Miss 


Robert Writes Two Letters 57 

Gillian had bought a pink ready-made blouse, three white 
nightdresses—not unbleached, such as she usually wore— 
shoes with heels, and a veil; how lovely she looked in the 
toque made of the slatey drake; how she had taken six 
rabbit skins to the chief draper at Weeping Cross, and 
had them made into a muff and tippet; how she had 
laughed like half a dozen woodpeckers, and sung like 
twenty throstles; and how they had finally made some 
paste and fastened on the label: 

MISS JULIANA LOVEKIN, 

PASSENGER TO SILVERTON. 

Ah, how sad the white eye of the pelargonium! Almost 
it seemed to Robert that a dew had fallen in that quiet 
room, for he saw it through tears. 

“A fine mingicumumbus! And only to go to her 
a’ntie’s!” observed Jonathan. 

“Going opens the door to the world,” said Abigail, 
turning the stockpot upside down over an immense basin, 
and proclaiming supper. 

Robert hummed very softly: 

“And howsoever far I’d roam, 

I couldna find the smiles and tears of whome.” 

“What a kimet-” began Jonathan, looking at him 

open-mouthed. But at this point he cut himself, and 
Abigail took command. She had everything at hand. No 
trick of an unkind fate could surprise her. She had simple 
disinfectants, ointments, clean needles for thorns, soft 
linen, bandages, even a bit of iron for cauterising, in case 
some mad dog should seek out Jonathan and bite him 
(which Abigail was sure would happen if there were even 
one case of rabies in the West Country). While she 
bound him up, she made him feel like a wounded hero, 
so that a glow came over him, and he enjoyed his troubles, 



58 Seven for a Secret 

and the idea that he was clumsy was never allowed to 
enter his mind. 

Robert looked at the heap of pegs beside Jonathan. 
They would take Kim till midnight with his own. It did 
not occur to him to leave them undone. There was the 
task, just as in potato setting or haying, and, if one was 
incapacitated, the others must do more. 

“What time’ll she start, Mother?” 

“The noon train.” 

“Then I’ll please to ask you to give me bite and sup 
as soon as I’ve milked. I’ll just put on me market coat 
and wrap horse rug round me.” 

“You’re set to take her then?” 

“Ah.” 

With a safety-pin in her mouth, Mrs. Makepeace looked 
at her son across Jonathan’s bandaged hand. Her eyes 
were keen with love—futile love, for she could not help 
him. She would have liked to “cosset” him as she did 
Jonathan, but she knew it was useless. He looked back 
at her with those deep eyes of his—brooding and sad, stern 
and a little mocking—and his secret, which she had 
guessed, but had not certainly known, leapt across the quiet 
room. 

“Drat the girl!” thought she. “I didna want it to be 
this way. ’Twas she should ha’ loved first. Now here 
the lad’ll sit and mope like a bird with a shot mate. Nowt 
said. Nowt done. Oh, deary me! Canna you hold still 
a minute, Jonathan, my dear?” 

Jonathan, who had been enjoying his cut very much, 
looked up wistfully, like a child in fault, at this sudden 
irritability. 

“Mother, is there ever a bit o’ writing paper in the 
place?” asked Robert. 

“Ah! There’s a sheet or two left from the box Mrs. 
Fanteague sent me Christmas was a year.” 

She fetched it. 

“A pen, Mother?” 


Robert Writes Two Letters 59 

But no pen could be found. They were not a writing 
family. Isaiah kept the farm accounts, Robert’s songs 
were in his mind only, and when Abigail wrote on the 
jam covers she borrowed a pen from Gillian. 

“There’s a drop of ink, but the pen’s lost,” she said. 

Robert lit the lantern and went out, returning soon 
with a quill from the poultry house, which he cut into 
shape. His mother’s mouth did not work when he used 
the knife, nor did she watch him. Was he not the marrow 
of his father, that man of absolute, though quiet, com¬ 
petence ? 

Robert put the quill and paper on the chest of drawers 
beside the shell box and the Bible in readiness, and went 
on with the pegs. 

As Mrs. Makepeace washed up she thought: “So it goes! 
Nowt said to her. Nowt said to me. It’ll be a wonder 
if the Lord Almighty gets a word out of the lad. He’ll 
just eat sorrow. Now, what’s that letter he’s set on writing 
when we’ve gone upstairs?” 

She fetched the candlestick. 

“Time for us to be going, my dear.” 

“Which was what Lord ’Umphrey said when the Dark 
Coach came for the Lady Rosanna Tempest,” remarked 
Jonathan. “ ‘Time for us to be going,’ he says. And 
in she got. And off they druv. And clap went all! For 
Lord ’Umphrey was the owd lad himself, and none saw 
’em after.” 

“It’s raining soft and quiet,” said Abigail, opening the 
door and looking out into the night. 

“Heavy going to-morrow, Mother.” 

“Ah, Bob!” she sighed. 

As she knelt in her unbleached nightdress and the red 
woollen shawl that John had given her, she made an extra 
prayer for her son. 

“O Lord! Let Miss Gillian and Master and everybody 
bend to my lad’s will like corn to the wind. Amen.” 

But whether this prayer was addressed to Christ or 


60 


Seven for a Secret 


Jehovah or a pagan god it would have been difficult to say. 

As soon as he was alone, Robert set out the writing 
materials and began his letter. It was very short. He 
addressed it to “Mister Gruffydd Conwy, by the kindness 
of Mister Cadwalladar, Grocer, The Keep.” 

With his face bent over the letter, his dark, slightly 
wavy hair and well-shaped head outlined against the white 
wall, he made a pleasant picture. When he lifted his 
wide brows to glance at the golden-sounding clock, the 
yellow, figured face seemed to congratulate itself as though 
it were feminine and had charmed these grey eyes. 

Robert was glad when the letter was done. He drew 
a mug of beer from the cask in the larder and went on 
with the pegs again. These done, he fell into a deep cogi¬ 
tation, while the low firelight shone up into his face, 
accentuating the strong jaw, the fine lines about the eyes, 
the slightly hollow temples, the decisive nose. So he was 
to sit, alone and brooding, on another winter night not so 
very far away, while the clock ticked low as if in awe, 
and the red firelight tinted his face like that of the Roman 
soldier in Gillian’s picture. Perhaps even now, in the 
silence, the future spoke; perhaps even now his very self 
was aware and ready. 

She was going from him. Should he ask her to write? 
Of what use were letters? Either you had a person’s very 
self beside you or—nothing. Of what use would it be 
to him, wanting her laugh, her stamp of rage, wanting 
her there to watch and plan surprises for, of what use to 
have a letter, stilted and formal, saying she was well and 
A’ntie sent compliments? Also, she would not be allowed 
to write to him when her family were aiming at the 
Church. 

“All as is, is this,” he thought, “the way I feel to the 
child must be the secret that’s never been told.” 

He pondered. 

“No reason I shouldna know she’s well,” he thought, 
“and things going pleasant.” 


Robert Writes Two Letters 61 

He wrote another letter. This was addressed to: 

“Gipsy Johnson, 

“The Caravan on the Fair Ground, 

“Silverton.” 

Gipsy Johnson travelled into Wales by way of the 
Gwlfas every spring, returning in the autumn, and living 
through the winter at Silverton. He was one of Robert’s 
friends. Robert had a silent, unstressed, lifelong friend¬ 
ship with a good many people. Each spring and autumn 
he and Johnson smoked a pipe together by the gipsy fire, 
saying little, asking few questions, but conscious of mutual 
trust. There was very little that Johnson did not know 
about Silverton and the country where lay his beat. Also 
he had the key to that curious express system which, in 
lonely places, can bring news almost as quickly as the 
telegraph wires, running over the land like secret wild¬ 
fire—the Mercury of democracy. Under his eye Gillian 
would be safe. That desire of hers to go to London alone, 
of which Robert knew, could not be carried into practice 
without Johnson’s knowledge. It was a desire that must 
be decisively treated, Robert had decided. Of what use 
was parental authority or the aphorisms of aunts or the 
mild shockedness of a Mr. Gentle, when dealing with a 
girl like Gillian? His lips took their forbidding line and 
there was a flicker of amusement in his eyes. He and 
Johnson were the men for that job, for they could meet 
wiles with action, and boldness with superior knowledge 
of the situation, and they were not polished and would 
have no qualms about using force if necessary. At the idea 
of himself daring to dictate (though silently) to Miss 
Lovekin, Robert threw back his head and laughed sound¬ 
lessly. Yes. He and Johnson would carry it through. 

“Dear sores! If she went flaunting in her innicence 
to that wilderness o’ men, she’d soon be trod under foot,” 
he thought. 


62 


Seven for a Secret 


He wrote: 

“Dear Friend, 

“Master’s girl’s coming to Mrs. Fanteague of the 
Lilacs to stop a bit. Please to keep a glim on her. Leave 
me know all’s well time and agen. Send quick if you 
hear tell of her travelling anywhere. Hoping all’s well 
as it leaves me. 

“Robt. Rideout.” 

He lit his pipe and sat looking at the envelopes with 
some complacency. 

“That job’s jobbed,” he reflected. He went to the 
window. Velvet-dark night leant against it with an almost 
palpable weight; it was as if the glass might fall inwards 
at any moment. He drew back the bolt and went out, 
stepping straight into the breast of a great cloud that lay 
across the Gwlfas like a grey bird. Through the fold, 
under the drift-house, he went, on to the little lawn in 
front of the farm, where the mossy grass was spongy, and 
white fragments of snow lay to the north. He stood by 
the pigeon cote. Yes! There was her lit window—pale 
yellow, like a Lent lily. Once he saw her head outlined 
against the light. 

He threw a pebble. It struck sharply on the glass. He 
threw it as if it were a signal of distress, because of the 
sudden pain of knowing that to-morrow there would be 
no bright Lent lily there. She opened the window and 
leant out. She had a white shawl on. Underneath he 
could see in the flickering candlelight a sleeve with frills 
—one of those new, extravagant nightgowns, no doubt. 

And it was only for two old ladies to admire! Oh, 
dear! 

“Good neet!” he said abruptly. For now that she was 
there he could think of nothing to say. He had ceased 
to be the usual human word-coining machine, and was 
just a surge of wild instincts and desires. 


Robert Writes Two Letters 63 

A ripple of laughter fell. 

“And you called me up out of my beauty sleep to say 
‘Good neet!’ as crousty as can be!” 

“You werena asleep.” 

“What’s kep you up so late?” 

“Writing letters.” 

“Letters! I didna know you could!” 

“I can do whatever I set mind to do.” 

“Where be they? Who to? Can I see?” 

Robert slapped his chest. 

“They be in my pocket. They be to friends o’ mine. 
You canna see ’em. But they consarn you.” 

He laughed. 

“Oh, you aggravating man!” 

She slammed the window. 

The Lent lily faded. 

“Well, God bless ye!” said Robert, as his heavy boots 
went “sook, sook” across the lawn. 


chapter vi: Tea at the Junction 

M ORNING came coldly over the sodden moor, where 
partridges ran across the deep cart-tracks with the 
glee of creatures released from a spell. For the present 
winter had withdrawn like a slow wave, and the green 
places shone like stained glass with a light behind it. The 
farm glowed in deep jewel reds; the ricks took the 
colours of ripe barley; Robert’s face was red beneath its 
brown. The wind came from the north-west and was 
sharp and glassy as an iceberg. Gillian’s cheeks tingled as 
she climbed into the trap and waved a gay farewell to her 
father, and she was very much amused at his evident per¬ 
turbation on seeing who was to drive her. Rich as a dark 
pink rose with a touch of brown in it, she shone through 
the new veil, beneath the feathers of the defunct drake. 
The brown-grey rabbit fur suited her. Joy suited her. 
She had washed her hair with the farmhouse shampoo of 
beaten egg-yolk, and it gleamed with lustrous softness. 
Her gloves were of suede. She liked her shoes so much 
that she would not have the rug over them. The cor¬ 
nelian heart added its touch of elegance. Gillian was, she 
felt, a real lady. 

“Well, if ever!” breathed Robert, after a mile in 
silence, during which he had stolen many sidelong looks. 
“It inna so bad, is it?” 

“Bad! You’re the Queen of May, Miss Gillian.” 
“Miss?” 

“Ah, you’ve got to be Miss Gillian now.” 

“Miss always I shanna be! ” 

Robert suddenly slashed at the mare, to her everlasting 
surprise. It had never happened before. What had come 
to this dear master? What had she done? Indignant, 
64 


Tea at the Junction 65 

half in revolt, she made the cart spin past the last fields 
of the farm. They were opposite the gyland now. These 
neighbouring fields always seemed to be tentatively asking 
each other’s protection against the wild that lay, vast, pur¬ 
ple, and silent, on every side. 

To hide the sudden fury that possessed him at the 
thought of Gillian’s marriage, Robert pointed with the 
whip to the long, narrow cover of stunted larches and 
birches called the “Gyland,” which rose steeply on the 
other side of the brook beyond the first of the Mermaid 
fields. 

“Unket!” he said. “Real unket, that place is.” 

“Ah!” 

Gillian had not noticed his confusion. She was en¬ 
grossed in the thought that this evening she would be out 
in the world. 

“It’s a place,” said Robert, still looking at the dark, 
snow-strewn cover, “where summat ’ll come to pass. 
Summat unket.” 

“What for will it?” 

“I dunno. But I feel it in my bones.” 

“Tell it! It’s like a tale of frittening.” 

“It’s like as if there were places where the Lord o’ 
Darkness comes borsting through, and they bear the mark 
before and after. Like as if good’s thin there—only a 
croust—and he can come through easy. All the while 
afore it, the place bodes it. All the while after, it minds 
it. So it’s different from other places forever and ever.” 

“I like that. It’s right nice and ’orrid.” 

“I dunna like it. It’s got summat to do with you and 
me.” 

“Oh, Robert! What way?” 

“I dunno. Some way. You mind how you fell out 
o’ cradle and cut yer forehead?” 

“Ah, I fell out o’ cradle. I was dreaming about where 
I came from—a green place with mountains and chiming 
rivers where I was before I was born. I woke up all of a 


66 


Seven for a Secret 


sudden, and it was dark, and there was a sough o’ wind, 
and wildfire in the window, and I knew summat beyond 
the glass was jealous of my dream.” 

“And you only five summers!” 

“Ah. I couldna put words to it for a many years. But 
I knew there was somebody crushing and crushing at the 
farm to get at me and the dream. And in the morning, 
Mother said she noticed a great crack in the chimbley right 
to the ground.” 

“And you’d had the dream before?” 

“Ah! Every night, when Mother rocked me, the 
dream came. Always the same. Little round hills like 
Gwlfas Pyatt, and some a bit bigger like ‘the green hill 
far away,’ and all round ’em at the back, sharp-pointed, 
high black mountains, and bright streaks of silver down 
’em, that was rivers.” 

“And it was a good dream?” 

“I canna tell you the good of it. It was like all the 
best things—like the feeling of sliding on good ice, and 
riding down hill with a wallop, and neesening, and the 
good feeling of Lord’s Supper, and paddling in the brook, 
and having dinner at the ‘Ordinary’ (only I don’t never), 
and finding a vi’let in winter.” 

“But it broke?” 

“Ah. It broke like gossamers when the soughing came 
in the chimbley. Then the bad spirits put a mark on me, 
and I’m a child of hell.” 

“No.” 

“Ah! I canna help it. Whenever the good dream 
comes, the bad’ll break in. As soon as I begin to see them 
shiny meadows and green, mossy mountains, I’m feared.” 

“Dunna be.” 

“But if those devils came crushing in agen, I’d die.” 

“They shanna. I’ll keep you safe.” 

“You? Oh, Robert! You binna strong enough.” 

“I be, because I-” 

“Because what?” 


Tea at the Junction 67 

a Oh, gerron-with-ye, mare!” said Robert very crossly. 

The mare’s moist dark eye came round—for he drove 
without blinkers—as if in reproach. 

“And maybe that’s what the dark feel of the gyland 
means. Maybe they’ll break through there and kill my 
dream.” 

“There’s summat waiting there, I make no doubt. We 
mun just bide and see.” 

“Do ye like my dress, Robert?” 

Green hills and granite mountains must recede before 
such a weighty question. 

“It’s middling tidy.” 

“I’d like to give you a clout in the ear, Bob Rideout! 
Only ‘middling tidy’!” 

“But I canna see why you mun go and kill the poor 
owd drake. Owd drake and me was alius friendly.” 

“I wanted a hat that colour.” 

“If you alius kill to have, you’ll go to the land o’ silence 
raddled all o’er.” 

“I dunna care.” 

“Mind the day dunna come when you’ll sup sorrow 
for it.” 

“I shall get preaching in Sil’erton, thank ye kindly. 
Look! There’s public. What a lost and forgotten place 
it looks. I canna bear the way the sign creaks, winter.” 

“It’s unket, like the gyland. But it’s a grand place 
enough, with all the upsy downsy rooms, and the great 
guest chambers, to say nought of the attics. It’s bigger 
than Thatchers want.” 

“Father says, if Mrs. Thatcher dies, Mr. Thatcher ’ll 
leave.” 

“That’ll be a big change. Thatchers ha’ been there 
many a long day.” 

“I wonder who’ll come?” 

“Ah.” 

“Maybe somebody young as’ll give a Christmas tea. 
I’d like to go to a Christmas tea at the public.” 


68 


Seven for a Secret 


“Likely you will some day.” 

“I wonder what Mrs. Thatcher felt like when she came 
walking over the heath in her bride-dress, and Mr. 
Thatcher’s arm in her arm, and the blush roses in blow, 
and none in all that great place but him and her? And 
I wonder what Mr. Thatcher felt like?” 

“I can pretty well guess.” 

“Say!” 

“I wunna.” 

“You’re talking very choppy. You ought to read the 
book of good manners A’ntie lent me. It says nought 
about chopping the words like worms under a spade.” 

She pulled out her handkerchief and played with it. 
Whiffs of scent came from it, lace edged it; all this for¬ 
bidden sweetness was unbearable. At the top of the long 
road that swept in a grand switchback of gradually 
descending country from the “Mermaid’s Rest” to Mal¬ 
lard’s Keep, Robert pulled up short. 

“Now look you, Gillian, no more o’ that! No more 
about kissing and weddings and what-not. Flesh and 
blood wunna stand it.” 

Gillian’s face was gleeful. So flesh and blood wouldn’t 
stand it! Aha! He wouldn’t kiss her, but none the less 
he thought her pretty. He was obstinate, but he had been 
obliged to ask for mercy. 

“I tell ye,” went on Robert’s angry voice, “another 
word and I’ll drive down there dang-swang, and dash us 
to pieces at the bottom and lie in one grave.” 

“Oh, Robert! Why won’t flesh and blood stand it?” 

Robert gave her a look, a fierce, swift look like a ray 
of concentrated light. Then he set his face towards the 
Keep again. 

“Oh, coom on, mare! We’ll miss that borsted train!” 
he said. 

They continued for some miles in silence. At last, 
after many lonely hills and valleys, they climbed the last 


Tea at the Junction 69 

steep hill to a Pisgah view of Mallard’s Keep. There it 
lay—the end of delight for Robert. There it shone, its 
clustered roofs, square church tower and miniature rail¬ 
way station all sloping up a hill with the inconsequence 
of a card house. Beyond were meadows, steep woods, blue 
distance, purple distance, smoke-coloured hills, and more 
hills so pale as to fade on the sky. All about them plovers 
ran in the mangold fields and wheeled in the air with their 
wistful winter cry. A luggage train like a toy drew out 
from the distant station with no sound, and a puff of white 
smoke floated like a bubble against the dark woodland. 
The acrid scent of burning weeds came up from an unseen 
fire somewhere in the meadows below the road. A thrush, 
balanced on the top twig of a fragrant fir tree, sang with 
piercing sweetness. Robert looked, listened, sighed. His 
broad shoulders were a little bowed, and looked pathetic. 
When a man is young and his pulses strong; when desire 
is swift and eager, and all things subservient to it; then 
it is very easy to take, very hard and bitter to renounce. 
They might have been driving to a fair or a harvest dance 
or a Christmas supper as a betrothed couple, or even to 
church to have their barms called. (Oh, thought for¬ 
bidden! Oh, sweet thought!) It might have been the 
gate of heaven, that little, huddled, shining town. It was, 
instead, the gateway of despair. They were going to no 
feast of fulfilment. It was not golden September, but 
cold, early spring; nothing begun, nor likely to begin— 
no possibility of any harvest for his love. 

“Oh, dang it!” he said. 

An idea came to Gillian. It would be fun! It would 
be doing a kindness to Robert also. It would be Christian, 
as Christian as one of Aunt Fanteague’s prayer-meetings— 

nearly. 

“'Robert! Would you like to come as far as the Junc¬ 
tion along of me, and us’ll get tea, and Fll go on by the 
last train?” 


70 


Seven for a Secret 


“Oh, my dear ’eart!” murmured Robert. 

“I canna hear what you say, Robert. Tell it out! I 
dunna like churching-mice.” 

“I darstna.” 

“Well, but darst you come?” 

“Well,” said Robert, staring defiantly at the far blue 
hills, “I dunna see why not.” 

She clapped her hands. 

“We’ll have some fine May-games, Robert O! There’s 
a shop at the Junction where they sell cornets in summer 
—made of biscuit with pink ice inside. But they wunna 
have ’em in winter. Oh, dear!” 

“There’ll be buns,” said Robert, “and plum cake, likely, 
and brandy-balls and liquorice.” 

“Ah, but liquorice is for children.” 

“Hoity-toity! you be grown-up and grand! You’ll be’ 
getting altogether marred for us poor folk when you’ve 
been in Silverton a bit.” 

“Well, Mr. Rideout, it wunna be you as has to live 
with me, so you needna mind.” 

Off they went, hell-for-leather down the hill, for Rob¬ 
ert’s patience was exhausted. Not a word did he say as 
they rushed on, nor as they climbed the steep main street, 
nor as they drove over the cobbled inn yard where he un¬ 
harnessed and stabled the mare. Without a word he 
shouldered Gillian’s box and turned towards the station. 

The road twisted back for a few yards, and they faced 
towards Dysgwlfas. There it lay, so faint, so blue, the 
one long, wavering line that meant so many miles of 
folded, seamed and tumbled land. There was his home. 
There he must bide until he had fulfilled his task, silently 
laid upon him by the silent moor. He must drag its heart 
out, mingle it with his own being, make it into something 
lovely and unfading. The soul of Gillian Lovekin also 
should be mingled with it. He had no knowledge, no 
words, no books, yet he would do it. 

“Ah!” he said to himself, as he brooded on that faint 


Tea at the Junction 71 

far-hung ridge. “I’ll get the guts out of the place. I 
will that!” 

“Oh, look ye!” cried Gillian. 

There, about a mile away, between two hills of bare 
larches, which shone golden in the afternoon sunlight, 
was a puff of white smoke—the train. 

“Look sharp, or we’ll miss un!” cried Gillian. 

When they came to the station Robert discovered that 
he had not one penny in his pocket. Here was a pretty 
pass! 

“I amna coming,” he said sulkily. 

“I’ve taken your ticket!” laughed Gillian. “Come you 
shall!” 

She commanded, scolded, implored. It was useless. At 
last the guard prepared to wave his, flag. Robert stood 
stolidly on the platform. Gillian was in despair. Her 
afternoon’s fun was to be snatched from her. Suddenly 
she was lonely. She leaned out. 

“Oh, please, sir!” she cried to the guard. “Could you 
and porter give my ’usband a leg up, for he’s all of a kim- 
kam with the rheumatics?” 

Before Robert could collect his wits he was hoisted into 
the carriage by four kind, brawny arms and received by 
Gillian. 

The flag waved. The whistle blew. They were alone. 

“Dear to goodness!” said Robert, red and wrathful. 
“If I was your ’usband, my girl, I’d learn you not to make 
such a gauby of me! I would that!” 

But Gillian only laughed. 

“Oh, deary me! I hope nobody knew us! What ud 
father say? But I got my way!” 

“Ah! you got your way by a nasty, sneaking woman’s 
trick. I wish I could get mine as easy,” remarked Robert, 
with a sudden blaze of passion in his eyes. 

“And what met that be?” 

“Ah, maybe that’s the secret that’s never been told, Miss 
Gillian.” 


72 


Seven for a Secret 


With a wild and gloomy expression he turned his back 
on her, and did not look at her again until they had passed 
the three wayside stations set in the woods, and were near¬ 
ing the Junction. He was afraid, desperately afraid, of 
forces undreamed of within himself, of a savagery that 
slept within his own soul, bound, but strong enough to 
break any shackle. 

As they drew in to the Junction he turned to her. 

“Gillian Lovekin!” he said. “I warn ye, dunna play 
too many May-games with me. I tell ye straight, I canna 
stand it.” 

From her corner she looked at him and quailed a little. 

Then she jumped out on to the platform in a flurry. 

“Come on!” she cried. “Now for the buns and the 
cake and the tea O! Darby and Joan at the Junction!” 

Robert was obliged to laugh. And although the for¬ 
bidding expression came back to his face afterwards, 
Gillian felt that she was forgiven. They came to the 
one tea-shop in the single street. Its small, rounded win¬ 
dow was full of brandyballs and bulls’ eyes, green canisters 
of tea with gold hieroglyphics on them, buns, ginger snaps, 
leather boot-laces, thimbles and oranges. Inside was a 
broadly smiling lady in a white apron, who said: 

“Pleasant weather for sweet’arting,” and made Robert 
angry again. 

But when the tea came—it was perfection. There were 
cakes of many shapes; there was a brown teapot with 
raised forget-me-nots on it; there were pikelets and jelly, 
and pink willow cups and a large cake with icing that stood 
on a doyley smelling of mice. 

When they had finished it was time to go to the station. 
On the way they looked into shops, and Gillian saw a pic¬ 
ture of a Roman soldier standing in a glare of light. 
Underneath was written: “Faithful unto death.” 

She went in and asked the price. It was three and six¬ 
pence, or, as she thought of it, two rabbits and a half. 

She bought it. 


Tea at the Junction 


73 


“Look! It’s like you, Robert!” 

Robert looked into the face of the soldier. He brooded 
so long that the approaching whistle of the train took them 
by surprise, and they had to run. 

“For you!” she said, as they reached the platform. 
Then, as she looked at his rough coat, his dark hair and 
eloquent, proud glance, she was suddenly homesick. She 
leant out. 

“I’ll see Severn to-night!” she said, with bravado. 

“What do I care if you see a score Severns?” 

“I want to see it—smooth and green, with swans on it.” 

“I canna abide swans.” 

“Robert!” 

“Well?” 

“There’s nobody in this carriage but me.” 

“So I see.” 

“If you’ve a mind-” 

“Gillian Love kin! your name ought to be Gill-flirt!” 

“But, Robert!” 

Robert looked at the flushed cheek, the smiling mouth 
ready to droop, the eyes that shone with the radiant tints 
of the feather hat. Then without more ado he turned 
and rushed up the platform with long strides. When he 
came back there was only the flutter of a handkerchief 
from the receding train. But on his way home Robert 
took many refreshing peeps at the picture of the soldier. 
It comforted him, in the suddenly realised emptiness 
created by that fluttering handkerchief, to dream that there 
might come a time when he would stand amid the red 
ruin of his life defending the helpless, childish soul of 
Gillian. 


chapter vii : Gillian Comes to Silverton 


HE country grew dimmer, grew dark, in the short 



A journey. It only took three-quarters of an hour, but 
to Gillian it was like a whole day. Once she saw the far 
hills dark against the afterglow, once she caught a glimpse 
of a brook lit by reflected radiance. Then came straggling 
houses, a village church, houses clustering thicker, roofs all 
huddled together, a square church tower, two silver spires, a 
great bridge across the Severn—Silverton. They ran into 
a bay of the long station, and there stood Aunt Fanteague 
in her best mantle and her well mortised bonnet, very 


severe, 


“We missed our train,” remarked Aunt Fanteague. 
When she used the first person plural, things were very 
wrong. 

“I’m only a country girl, A’ntie,” said Gillian. “Sil¬ 
verton ’ll soon learn me to catch trains.” She thought of 
the London express. 

“I’ve met the train twice,” said Aunt Fanteague, half 
inclined to be mollified. 

Gillian gave her a great hug. 

“It ud serve me right if you hadna kept any tea for 
me,” she said, “and I clemmed.” 

“No one shall clem in my house, Juliana.” 

“Oh, A’ntie, you are good.” 

They walked out of the station yard, up the hill, with 
bright shop-windows on both sides. The cake shop at the 
top of the hill was a blaze of light and gay-ribboned 
chocolate boxes. 

“Not even London,” said Gillian, “could be better than 
this.” 

“Oh, London! Well, I’ve never been there myself. 


74 


Gillian Comes to Silverton 75 


Silverton’s good enough for me. Where there’s a church, 
and a doctor, and a butcher’s, and the other shops for the 
necessary, and a good wool shop, and reasonable coal, it 
seems to me there’s no need of London.” 

“But folk tell a sight of tales-” 

“Oh, tales! They’ll make tales out of nothing. Now 
if you went to London what ud you find?” 

Gillian opened her mouth to say: “A lover,” but re¬ 
membered in time. 

“You’d find churches and butchers and the other shops, 
maybe a better wool shop, but less reasonable coal. That’s 
all.” 

“Oh, deary me!” 

“But you can ask poor Emily.” 

“Has A’nt Emily been to London?” 

“Why, yes, my dear, you needn’t scream. She went 
to her operation.” 

If she had said coronation, Aunt Fanteague could not 
have spoken more respectfully. They left the bright 
street and took their way up a narrow alley of ancient black 
and white houses. The moon was up, and it threw the 
deep shadows of old romance. Never a dark brooding 
shade of a gable without the possibility of a Romeo for 
every Juliet. Bells began to sound. They rang the 
chimes. A mellow bell said a word that sounded like 
“June” six times. As they crossed the square, the shutters 
were being put up. More black and white gables leaned 
to Gillian, more shadows lured her. Up another narrow 
street, down a little hill. 

“Here we are,” said Aunt Fanteague. The rumbling 
of the out-porter’s barrow followed them down hill. 
They had come to a little brown house, between a high, 
red garden-wall and another brown house. There were 
two windows up and two down, two gables, black oak 
beams let into the brown stone, two hollow white steps, a 
bright knocker. 

They knocked, and there was Aunt Emily. She stood 



Seven for a Secret 


76 

pensively under the pale light in the narrow hall, 
while the cuckoo-clock, a little behind the times, struck 
six. 

Aunt Emily kissed her. 

“It’s years since I saw you, dear,” she said. “Why, 
you’ve quite grown up!” 

“You saw her just before your operation,” said Mrs. 
Fanteague. 

“Yes, yes, sister.” 

Gillian understood that the time of the operation would 
be an inexhaustible topic; would perhaps provide her with 
much useful information. 

The box arrived. 

“Now, Emily, you take the child in. She’s starved and 
clemmed. I’ll see to the box.” 

Aunt Emily led the way. 

She was tall and thin, and she seemed to have too many 
bones in her face, so that when she spoke, you expected 
them to click together. She had a lined forehead, a pointed 
chin, a wistful mouth and eyes that always seemed to have 
just stopped crying. She was dressed in grey, with a small 
lilac bow. Her hair was slightly grey and was knotted 
at the back and covered with a net, not built up like Aunt 
Fanteague’s. 

In the parlour the table was set for tea, and the fire of 
reasonable coal burned brightly. There was a piano which 
was a musical box. There was an oval case of stuffed 
willow-wrens; there were two glass-fronted cupboards of 
china, a whist table, and several framed lustre paintings 
on velvet; a cabinet portrait in a plush frame signed 
Hubert Gentle; a piece of coal which was supposed to 
contain a diamond, and which caused much future trouble 
to Gillian. (She was unable, after some weeks, to tolerate 
its bland assumption of priceless worth, so she proved it 
with a pocket knife. In the manner of coal, it fell to 
pieces. There was no diamond, nor was there now any 
coal; and it was an heirloom. Not only that, it was a 


Gillian Comes to Silverton 77 

faith. She felt, on the day when she faced Aunt Emily 
across the fragments, really a child of hell.) 

There were innumerable photographs on the walls, all 
a little mottled, a little yellow. They seemed to be of 
people who could never really have lived. The ladies 
wore chignons, the gentlemen wore whiskers. All wore 
stiff and curious clothes. She was told they were the 
Aunts’ grandparents, her great-grandparents. She was glad 
she had never known them. On the mantelpiece were 
vases of everlastings. In a corner was a painted drain¬ 
pipe (sunflowers on a brown ground), containing bul¬ 
rushes. On one wall was Landseer’s Fidelity y on another 
Highland Cattle y on another a still life study by Aunt 
Emily in youth (apples, Michaelmas daisies and vase), 
and on the fourth, Wedded . On the piano were some 
sacred songs. 

“As you’re a traveller, I know sister will excuse you 
sitting down as you are,” said Emily. “Do you take milk 
and sugar?” 

“Everything, please, A’ntie!” 

That was it! She wanted everything! She would take 
milk and sugar and all the rest of life. She would bear 
anything, even pain. Only never, never would she be 
like Aunt Emily. She would rather die. The atmosphere 
of the house oppressed her. It was so quiet. She was used 
to her father’s “Ha!” and Robert’s tramp in the yard, 
and a sound of shifting cowchains from the fold, and 
stampings from the stable. She was used to the smell of 
strong tobacco and beer. Here was only a faint scent 
of camphor. She thought even the bread and butter tasted 
of camphor, as if it had been cut for a tea-party of the 
mottled people on the walls, a long time ago, and pre¬ 
served. But Gillian was hungry again by this time, so 
the camphor and the seed cake, the quince conserve and 
the little cakes were all equally delicious. She wished 
Robert could enjoy it too. What would Robert be doing 
now? She saw again the dark moor, the winding road 


78 


Seven for a Secret 


with snow water lying in every uneven place, the vast 
and cloudy sky, the cart with Winny trotting briskly, ears 
pricked for home, and Robert’s figure, stooping forward 
a little in one of his customary attitudes of easy power, 
holding the reins in his large, capable hand with a look 
of carelessness which would have been swiftly belied if 
the mare had stumbled. 

When she looked at the brilliant tints of Aunt Emily’s 
apples, she saw that quiet picture. While she heard the 
coals fall with a tindery sound into the white ash on the 
flawless hearth, she heard also Winny’s splashing trot, the 
creaking of the harness, the rattle of the whip-holder, 
which had always been loose. Aunt Fanteague was a long 
while on the stairs, for not only must she go into the ethics 
of overcharges, but she also had to enquire as to the 
absence of the out-porter’s little boy from Sunday School, 
which was held under one of the silver spires. She also 
had to hear, in a loud, mysterious whisper, that the reason 
was that the missus had had an increase, and that all had 
been “collywessen” in the house. She then had to look 
out some comforts for the porter’s family, and give him 
many injunctions. So Aunt Emily and Gillian had a long 
time together. They had not met for some years, because 
Aunt Emily had not felt equal to the journey to the 
Gwlfas. 

Sometimes, beyond the shutters, muffled footsteps would 
go up or down the hill, and Gillian thought they sounded 
as steps would sound if she was in her grave, and had a 
flagstone over her, and was wakeful. Suddenly she felt 
sorry for Emily, sitting there so still, eating so little, get¬ 
ting ready for the dreams that would come in three hours. 
It was not in Gillian’s nature to be sorry for people, and 
when she pitied, she despised. Why had Aunt Emily be¬ 
come like this? Why hadn’t she run away with Mr. 
Gentle? Looking again at Mr. Gentle’s portrait, she 
wondered less. But she had the native courtesy which is 
in most country people, however rough they may be. 


Gillian Comes to Silverton 79 

“He looks to be a very pleasant-spoken gentleman,” she 
said. 

“His likeness to Charles the First of blessed memory,” 
said Aunt Emily, “is considered to be very striking.” 

“Was that the one that had his head-?” 

“The likeness is the only resemblance,” said Aunt 
Emily, rather stiffly. 

Gillian wondered if, should Aunt Emily so far forget 
herself as to ask for a kiss, Mr. Gentle would behave as 
Robert had behaved. Could Mr. Gentle blaze into sudden 
anger, with a look underneath that made you hot and cold? 
She did not think so. Her thoughts wandered to Aunt 
Fanteague. There was and always had been a mystery 
about Aunt Fanteague. There was a Mr. Fanteague; but 
where he was, what he did, who cooked his meals and 
made his bed, nobody seemed to know. He was as mys¬ 
terious as the Trinity. 

“A’nt Em,” said Gillian suddenly, flinging herself on 
the rug by the grey knees of Miss Emily, “A’nt Em, do 
tell about Mr. Fanteague!” 

Aunt Emily gasped. 

But the necessity of answering was taken from her. 
Mrs. Fanteague stood in the doorway. 

“Mr. Fanteague, Gillian, is a spark that runs among 
the stubble,” she said, and with that she poured herself a 
cup of tea, and closed the subject. “A spark among the 
stubble!” It sounded nice—better than Charles the First. 
She would like to meet Mr. Fanteague. Since her early 
years all mention of him had been hushed and frozen. She 
and Mrs. Makepeace simmered with curiosity. Apparently 
this was not to be satisfied. 

“Maybe, if I’m right nice to Mr. Gentle, I can get it 
out of him,” thought Gillian. 

She was too much on her best behaviour to get up and 
look at his portrait, but she could see it fairly well from 
her chair, for her sight, like her supple movements, had 
something in it of the falcon. She took the opportunity 


80 


Seven for a Secret 


of Mrs. Fan league going to fetch hot water to say: “I do 
want to listen to Mr. Gentle reading.” 

“It’s his evening to-morrow,” confided Aunt Emily. 
“He never misses. Not in all these years. Colds he may 
have. Once it was measles that he caught in the Sunday 
School. (I compare him to the brave leper Missionaries, 
for though it was not dangerous, it was just as sacrificial.) 
And once it was earache; but he came.” 

Gillian clasped her hands round her knees and said, 
without any sarcasm: 

“It must be grand to have a lover! For a chap to be 
mad after you!” 

Aunt Emily hastily reached a palm-leaf fan that hung 
on the wall. She was very much embarrassed. 

“Mr. Gentle would never be mad after anything,” she 
said. “And I don’t call him my lover, nor anything so 
forward. I call him my gentleman friend.” 

“I suppose it inna very likely as Mr. Gentle could ride 
without a saddle?” Gillian asked. 

“Juliana!” said her elder aunt, returning, “you must 
keep in mind that whatsoever your Aunt Emily and me 
was used to in times gone by, we’re used to good manners 
now—stirrups and saddles and good broadcloth—a paid 
pew in church—no feckless ways like at the Gwlfas.” 

“But it inna feckless to ride bareback!—you’ve got to 
get ever such a grip of the knees!” 

“You mustn’t talk like that when Mr. Gentle’s here, 
child. And now I’ll show you to your room. You can 
unpack ready for bed. We’re early folks. We go to bed 
at nine, nights, except on Mr. Gentle’s evenings, and then 
we allow ourselves till ten. One evening I shall ask the 
curate and his mother. He is a very earnest young man; 
one that found his God before he lost Him, and never 
left the narrow way.” 

“Oh, deary me! Never no fun at all!” 

“To play the devil’s game, Juliana, is not fun, but 
death.” 


Gillian Comes to Silverton 81 

“Afore I die,” said Gillian, as she brushed her hair 
(which filled her with despair because it never would be 
anything but plain brown) before the grand swing-mirror, 
“afore I die, I’m in behopes to play the devil’s games once 
anyway.” 

Aunt Fanteague sat down on the bed and raised her 
hands to heaven. 

“Juliana] I counsel you to read two chapters in the 
Bible to-night instead of one. Travelling’s turned your 
head. Best not come down again. I’ll bring you some 
bread and milk in bed. There’s ‘The Dove in the Eagle’s 
Nest,’ you can read when you’ve read your chapters.” 

“It’s a dove’s nest I’m in,” thought Gillian. “I’d liefer 
it was an eagle’s.” 

She wandered round the small, clean, bristling room. 
Three texts, girl and swan, kittens in basket, all framed 
in cut cardboard. An entertaining screen made of Christ¬ 
mas cards. A wallpaper with blue roses on it. A book¬ 
shelf with “Peep of Day,” a Bible, a “Lady’s Companion,” 
that had belonged to her grandmother, and had always 
been considered a great treasure, for her grandfather had 
“looked high” for his wife, and had married the school¬ 
mistress from Mallard’s Keep. There were also some 
bound copies of the “Quiver” in the seventies. Gillian 
thought there would be some good reading in these. She 
was fascinated most by the dressing-table, for it had a 
china set of dishes and boxes painted with unearthly flowers, 
culminating in a kind of china antler on which Gillian’s 
rings (if she had possessed any) were supposed to hang. 
She looked at her bare brown fingers. What a long way 
it seemed to that desired day when she would stand before 
a glittering audience with rings of all colours on her white 
hands, and sing them into an ecstasy. Well, she had 
gained one step. But had she? Looking round the pic¬ 
tured walls, listening to the silence, broken only by slow 
chimes, she had a sudden flash of perception that this was 
further away from her dreams than the Gwlfas was. She 


82 


Seven for a Secret 


realised that place is nothing—or at least very little. Aunt 
Emily’s visit to London helped in this. When Aunt 
Emily had been in London, she had really been further 
away from it, from its glittering savage soul, than she had 
been when she walked the old streets of Silverton in 
health. A hospital ward was not London, though in the 
centre of it: nor a prison, nor a nunnery, nor any place 
which had been made, either subtly or openly, into a cage. 
Gillian did not think all these things in any consecutive 
way, but the realisation was borne in on her—and she knew 
that if she married the curate or any one else whom her 
aunt should choose for her, she would be in a cage even 
if he took her to London. There was, then, no choice. 
It must be the way of the girl in the story—or the Gwlfas. 

“They’re poor old kim-kam things,” she reflected. 
“And Aunt Emily’s as soft as an unshelled egg. But I 
mun stop a bit, and learn some music and find a way to 
get to London town. And I’ll have some May-games with 
Mr. Gentle. I can just see ’im singing £ She is Queen of 
the Earth.’ I shall write to Robert one of these days. 
I’ll buy me some scented paper and then, maybe, Robert 
’ll kiss the letter.” 

Mrs. Fanteague, entering with the bread and milk, 
found Gillian dutifully reading the Bible. 

“Breakfast is eight prompt,” she said. “And then, when 
you’ve given me a hand in the kitchen, I’ll take you to see 
the town, Juliana, and you can buy a cake for tea. And 
mind, what you want, Juliana, is steadying, and to be 
brought to Jesus, and to mind and say isn’t instead of 
inna.” 

“Yes, A’ntie.” 

Mrs. Fanteague departed, with an injunction that the 
light was to be out in ten minutes. 

Gillian shut the Bible, put it away, took from beneath 
the pillow an ancient Bradshaw which she had found in 
the parlour, and began with much puzzling to look out the 
trains to London. 


Gillian Comes to Silverton 83 

She would have been very much surprised if she had 
known that Robert’s friends (minions they would have 
been called in romance) would soon be watching every 
outgoing train, unobtrusively, while they went about their 
work, and that Mrs. Fanteague’s little day-girl would 
to-morrow be in the confidence of Gipsy Johnson, and 
would find the Bradshaw in the morning and would report 
her every movement. 

She would have been surprised, also, if she could have 
looked beneath the sloping roof of Robert’s attic, where 
the door was so low that he had to stoop, though he was 
only of average height. There beneath the flaking white¬ 
wash Robert went to and fro in the small place, by the 
light of the moon and the tallow dip. On the mantel- 
oiece leaned the Roman soldier, and before him lay Gil¬ 
lian’s old hair-ribbon. In his stockinged feet went Robert, 
for boots were not allowed on the white attic stairs, and 
slippers were at the Gwlfas unknown. And as he walked, 
he chanted to himself the poem he had thought of on his 
journey home. 

“Is she a cruel wench, Gillian of the Gwlfas? 

The birds ask, the creatures of the moor ask me. 

Is she cruel? She strangled a bird to bedizen her, 

And her red cheeks are comely with our blood. 

Is she hard of heart, Robert Rideout? 

I’ll answer the birds and the creatures of the Gwlfas. 

Ah! She’s hard of heart to-day. She’s had no sorrow— 
Nowt but a scar on the brow. When her heart’s wounded 
She’ll love you, all you birds and creatures of the Gwlfas. 

She mun sup salt tears afore she’s raught free of evil. 

Her life mun be wounded. She mun be brought low. 

Can you bring down the pride of a woman raddled with 
blood— 

Of a heart like weathered granite on the steeps of the Gwlfas? 
Only the blazing sun of midsummer can crack the granite, 

Only love can find the way into a young gallus heart. 

I, Robert Rideout, would cleave her soul asunder. 

I’d take her in a net of love and make her suffer. 

Never should she go flaunting in the plumage of her sisters 


84 


Seven for a Secret 


Out in the world where folk lose their souls. 

I’d lief love her till she’s blind and deaf to herself, 

Until she canna-d-abear herself and is dead to herself. 

And when she lies at my feet beseeching the cowman-shepherd 
for his love, 

When her pretty hair is spread on the floor of our kitchen, 

I’ll speak unkind to her even a little longer. 

But at long last, oh, birds and creatures of the Gwlfas, 

I’ll suddenly snatch her into my arms and take her breath with 
kisses. 

Gillian, Gillian, Gillian Lovekin! 

Gillian, Gillian, Gillian Rideout! 

It’s bad to be cowman-shepherd when you love a rich woman— 
A woman with well-raddled sheep on the hills and money in 
the bank. 

I’d lief give one of the sheep to every old widow in the country, 
And a pound of her money to every orphan, 

And when she’d got nought left but a virgin’s garland 
I’d up and ask her for that. 

So she’d be a beggar. Then I’d make her queen of Dysgwlfas, 
And I’d work twenty hours out of twenty-four for Gillian, 

And sleep in her arms the other four. 

And Gillian would be twice remembered after she was dead, 

In my pennillion and in the children I’d give her.” 

By which it will be seen that tea at the Junction is very 
intoxicating, and that young men who live on the moors 
are sometimes quite as foolish when they are in love as 
young men in towns, and that Robert was not so chill and 
curt a being as he led people to suppose, and that he badly 
needed some lessons on the making of poetry. Away in 
Silverton the first milk-cart rattled down the steep street, 
and Gillian woke to her town life, hearing the chimes 
ring six. At the Gwlfas Robert came to himself. It was 
time to feed and water the horses, so he put away his pic¬ 
ture and his ribbon and the memory of his passion, and 
tip-toed downstairs and out into the cold, realistic world 
of a January morning. Going the rounds with his lantern, 
he smiled ironically at his foolishness, knowing that his 
pride would never allow him to tell Gillian his secret. He 
would not even write down his poems, for fear some one 


Gillian Comes to Silverton 


85 


should see them. Not until he was as old as Isaiah, and 
had a white beard and a chill pulse, not until he had made 
his poem perfect through decades of loving work, would 
he let any one hear it. 

“She’ll be peeking through blind now, no danger,” he 
thought. “Mighty angered her’d be if her knew about 
Johnson.” 

He laughed as he milked, and remembering that they 
were Gillian’s cows, or would be some day, and that Gillian 
could not stay in Silverton for ever, he even went so far 
as to hum a little air to the obbligato of the trickling milk, 
like a very contented basso-profondo bee. 


chapter viii : Gillian Meets Mr. Gentle 


G ILLIAN heard the day girl taking down the shutters 
and talking to Gipsy Johnson at the front door. He 
was a strange messenger of love, with his curious medley 
of garments, his rings, his dirty face and unmistakable 
aroma of the real nomad. Gillian looked out of her win¬ 
dow. Gipsy Johnson looked up. In one dark glance he 
had photographed her on his mind; wherever she was, in 
whatever company or dress, he would know her again. 
Gillian thought, “There’s a poor forsaken gipsy, like them 
as passes, spring and fall of the leaf.” She threw him a 
penny. He stooped with servile haste and picked it up. 
Round the corner he laughed very softly. There is one 
quality in life that gipsies appreciate more than ordinary 
country folk—irony. The girl was virtually his prisoner. 
She was his friend’s girl. She was to be kept safe for his 
friend with her will or without it. He cared nothing for 
that. He might be giving her the heart’s desire, or the 
dregs of hell. She threw him a penny, and undisturbed, 
unconscious, she hung her cornelian heart about her neck, 
and ran down to make the toast. 

“Can I learn the piano proper, A’ntie?” 

“Yes. I’d thought you’d best make the most of oppor¬ 
tunity. Lost time ticks in hell. Never waste time. If 
poor Emily’d learnt she’d have done great things in the 
world, I make no doubt.” 

“Can I begin to-day?” 

“I’ll think about it.” 

“Who’ll learn me, A’ntie?” 

“There’s a very nice lady-” 

“A lady!” 

“You cry out as if you’re hurt, Juliana.” 

86 



Gillian Meets Mr. Gentle 87 

Gillian bent lower over the toast. Those dreams of a 
pale young organist with flowing hair and delicate fingers, 
who would fall in love with her, but whom she would 
scorn—where were they? 

“She’s own cousin to Mr. Gentle. They’re a very 
gifted family.” 

So Gillian went, after breakfast, with her Aunt, and 
had her first music-lesson. And when she had wandered 
through the market and seen the shops and helped her 
aunt to make apple dumplings and had dinner, she began 
to long for evening and Mr. Gentle. At least he would 
be some one to experiment with. She went up to her room 
and put on the pink blouse for tea. The gas lamps were 
being lit, and purple dusk was gathering. She had read 
the Parish Magazine from cover to cover. She had prac¬ 
tised her scales. Down she ran, vivid with excitement. 
When she flushed and her eyes shone, her scar and her 
high nose were forgotten. Tea was in the parlour in 
honour of Mr. Gentle. There were rock buns and cream 
buns and many delights. Aunt Emily wore lavender 
poplin with a lace collar. Her hair was done so as to dis¬ 
guise its greyness. She wore a cameo brooch, and had 
scent on her handkerchief. The three women hurried to 
and fro, altering a spoon here, a plate there, rearranging 
the bunch of laurustinus on the table, poking the fire. If 
Mr. Gentle could have seen them, he would have been 
much embarrassed. He was so very unassuming, in spite 
of his royal appearance. 

Steps! A halt! The bell! Gillian was in the hall in 
a flash. 

She opened the door. There stood Charles the First. 

“Come in, Mr. Gentle,” said she. “I’m A’nt Emily’s 
niece, as maybe you know.” 

Mr. Gentle made a most beautiful bow. 

“I am indeed honoured and delighted, Miss Lovekin!” 
he said. 

The bald spot on his head was apparent when he bowed. 


88 Seven for a Secret 

But when he stood up Gillian saw it no more, and for¬ 
got it. 

“Emily!” said Mr. Gentle, and he bowed again. “I’m 
glad to see you so well; if I may say it, so charming.” 

Mr. Gentle did not speak the language of Silverton. 
He had a small library of his grandfather’s books: therein 
he read indefatigably, and therein he found his phrases. 
As Mrs. Fanteague said, even if he lacked words, looks 
would carry him through. He wore a very high Gladstone 
collar, a made tie, a white waistcoat and a cutaway coat. 
He had cuffs. 

Gillian knew that he would have thought Robert very 
common, for when asked what he would have, he said he 
would take a little preserve. Robert would have said: 
“Jam, thank you kindly,” and ladled it on to his plate. 

Mr. Gentle did not seem to care whether he had any 
or not. It amazed Gillian. 

“How many songs can you sing, Mr. Gentle?” she 
enquired. 

“Well, Miss Lovekin, I have six in my portfolio, but 
we usually content ourselves with two. Two is our limit, 
I think, Emily?” 

Emily said yes. 

“But to-night let’s have ’em all!” begged Gillian. 
“And if you’re hoarse I’ve got some liquorice as Robert 
bought me.” 

“Who’s Robert, dear?” 

This from Emily, who felt that she had a corner in 
romance to-night. 

Mr. Gentle looked roguish. 

“Oh, Robert’s only cowman-shepherd,” said Gillian. 

Mr. Gentle’s manner showed that the liquorice of a 
cowman-shepherd could never soothe the larynx of a 
Charles the First. 

“If Emily will accompany me, I will sing ‘Queen of 
the Earth’ as a beginning,” he said. 

Emily would. 


Gillian Meets Mr. Gentle 89 

Mr. Gentle’s voice trembled a little; it was slightly 
falsetto. The pathos of it, of Emily, poor sad Emily, as 
Queen of the Earth, of Mr. Gentle as a lover—poor Mr. 
Gentle, who in all his fifty-five years had never felt the 
divine fire, never been tempted to swerve from good 
manners was entirely lost on Gillian. For many years 
had he sung this, not even meanwhile making Emily 
queen of his own home. To Gillian they were enigmas. 
She was impatient. She evolved an amusing plan. It 
occurred to her when Mr. Gentle was singing: “Oh! that 
we two were maying.” 

“She would make Mr. Gentle sing it as a duet with her. 
He should take her up the river in a boat. Emily should 
not come. She would see if she could make Mr. Gentle 
flush as Robert had flushed, make him angry, make his 
hand tremble as Robert’s had done at the Junction. If 
she were Aunt Emily she would soon make Mr. Gentle 
propose. It was silly of Aunt Emily. 

“Maybe if I get ’im to tell it over to me, he’ll tell it 
over to Aunt Emily after,” she said. But in her heart she 
knew that she was mean. What business had she to trouble 
this middle-aged man, this forlorn woman, both content 
to stay for ever in their backwater? 

Conscience, like a tolling bell, warned her: but she 
would not hear its plaintive note. She hardened herself as 
she had done when she cut off the head of the slatey drake. 
She was a child of sin. Was she not scarred? She would 
play the devil’s May-games with Mr. Gentle, with Robert, 
with anybody. Only in Robert there was something ob¬ 
durate, a hardness more adamantine than her own, but of 
a different quality. Mr. Gentle sang all his songs. The 
last was “Annie Laurie,” to which he played his own 
accompaniment. While he sang his eyes dwelt on Gillian. 
Aunt Emily did not know, because she always listened 
with hers shut. 

Mrs. Fanteague yawned a good deal during the singing, 
and said very promptly after “Annie Laurie”: 


90 


Seven for a Secret 


“Now for our reading.” 

They were in the Fourth Book of Crabbe’s Collected 
Works. Mr. Gentle read very mellifluously. While he 
read, Gillian plotted how she would make him fall in love 
with her. If there had been a pale musician, anybody, 
except the unapproachable curate, she would have let him 
alone. Even now, when she looked long at him, she 
quailed. But she decided to victimise him. 

Crabbe was over. The tray was fetched by Gillian 
from the kitchen. After supper, all being much more 
flippant—for, as Aunt Emily said, cocoa is very heartening 
—they played round games. 

They played: “This is the one-horned lady (or gentle¬ 
man) very genteel, come to enquire of the two-horned 
lady.” 

Those who answered a question correctly wore a spill 
(made by Emily during the afternoon), which was stuck 
in their hair. Mr. Gentle put his behind his ear—a thing 
he would never have done before cocoa. He ended with 
a great sheaf of spills, and Aunt Emily said with pride 
that he always did. He was so well-informed. 

Helping Mr. Gentle on with his coat, under the demure 
hall light, Gillian said: 

“Mr. Gentle, will you take me on Severn?” 

Mr. Gentle thought perhaps he might—some day. 

“Not Aunt Emily!” 

“Not Emily!” 

Mr. Gentle rubbed his head in perplexity. 

“Not Emily! What will your Aunt Fanteague think 
of that?” 

“We’ll just go off early, afore breakfast, some day 
when the mornings be lighter.” 

“But I never-!” 

“Ah! but you will for this once, Mr. Gentle! It’ll be 
grand on Severn!” 

Mr. Gentle sighed. He never rose before nine, and 



Gillian Meets Mr. Gentle 91 

he hated rowing. But this vivid creature pleaded so! Her 
eyes were so imploring! Her smile was so sweet! 

He was not young enough to resist her. 

For youth is hard. It is not true that temptation is 
worse for young men. It is the middle-aged men, wistful 
with loss or unfulfilment, prone to melancholy, reverential 
of youth, glad of any music to sing them out of remem¬ 
brance of the gathering silence—it is they who find it 
hard to say No. 

Robert Rideout would have snapped out “No,” and have 
done with it. 

Mr. Gentle hesitated, and while he did so, Gillian laid 
her hand on his arm and he was lost. 

“Some day—some day, Miss Juliana.” 

“The first sunny day, when the weather’s lightened up 
a bit!” said Gillian firmly. 

Mr. Gentle, looking rather miserable, assented, but he 
added that it was likely to be a long winter, and a very 
cold, wet spring. 


chapter ix : The Harper’s Forge 

S HARP light struck out from the shutterless window 
of the round lambing-hut, built of turves and roofed 
with furze by Robert himself. It was warm inside, even 
without the heat of the rough brazier of live coals resting 
on four large stones. Shafting slightly upward, the light 
struck across the frozen grass of the moor, where it sloped 
towards the sky-rim. The hut stood in a hollow, and 
beside it was the low roof of thatch supported on larch 
boles and surrounded by hurdles, where the ewes were. 

Robert sat by the table in the restricted lantern light, 
reading a letter. Sometimes he got up and stooped over 
a lamb, lying dank and limp beside the brazier—come 
through the door of living, with only just its life. Some¬ 
times, when a low note of pain sounded from the shippen, 
he would go out, and the wide moor would become an 
ebony frame for his small, round, daffodil-coloured light. 
Then, sitting down again, he would rest the patched sleeves 
of his stained coat on the table and muse upon his letter. 
It was from Gruffydd Conwy, at the Forge Cottage of 
Trewern Coed, over the border, and it was to invite him 
to come, on the first Saturday when he was free, and talk 
with Gruffydd about pennillions. 

Robert, who was always practical when this was neces¬ 
sary, counted the ewes that had not yet lambed, and de¬ 
cided that he could be spared on the next Saturday. He 
was rapturous to be nearing the knowledge that would 
enable him to cage his thoughts swiftly and permanently. 
He whistled and hummed to himself, and sometimes sang 
aloud, and his voice went tenderly rolling under the grey- 
moth dawn towards the eastern horizon, beyond which 
Gillian lay, rosily sleeping in her white nightgown. His 


The Harper’s Forge 93 

poet’s heart conjured her: his eyes beheld her: his arms 
ached for her. Could desire have penetrated that young 
hard heart of hers, he would have drawn her from her 
bed, from the house, the town, over the dim fields like a 
white heron, into his arms. But she was like the maiden 
in the glass coffin, and not even the faintest tremor of his 
deep, hidden passion could penetrate to her soul. 

He was glad of these nights of watching; they sapped 
his strength a little, and by lowering his vitality and making 
his passion less physical, less throbbing, they brought life 
into better focus, and drew back his peace, as dusk draws 
again, over the wild sunlight of the plain, quiet folding 
mist. He stamped the brazier coals to blackness with his 
nailed boot and went, with a lamb under each arm, along 
the path that smelt of earth and rime and winter hay, to 
his mother’s cottage. 

Standing outside the back door, as his custom was when 
his boots were muddy, he whistled a blackbird call to his 
mother, who came hurrying out and gathered the small 
ugly creatures into her arms. 

“Jim Postman’s been,” she said, “and brought tidings 
as Mrs. Thatcher passed away last night.” 

Jonathan came to the door. He was going to market, 
and had therefore been shaving, and had therefore cut 
himself. He stood with the razor in one hand, and a lump 
of rather dirty cotton-waste in the other, looking like a 
picture of an attempted suicide. 

“New folk, new folk,” he said. “There’ll be new folk 
at the ‘Maiden’ now, and I dunna like new folk. When 
I catchen sight on a new face I smell trouble.” 

“I smell burning,” said Mrs. Makepeace, as she ran to 
the oven. 

“Be that ’am done, mother?” he inquired with keen 
interest. 

“Ah! It wur in all night. But it mun cool afore we 
get our teeth in it.” 

“We met not live to eat it!” said Jonathan sadly. 


94 Seven for a Secret 

“Poor Mrs. Thatcher hasna. New folk! New folk! 
God ’elp us!” 

“Oh, what a poor God-’elp you be, Jonathan,” remarked 
his wife, peeling the “rough” pastry from the cooked ham, 
and keeping an eye on the lambs, lest a hot cinder fall on 
them. 

“You mind the tale o’ the New Folk at the ‘Maiden,’ 
a hundred year ago,” continued Jonathan, unperturbed. 
“Took the place all of a pother. No arglin and barglin. 
No banting of the price. No coddling about with the 
agent, choosin’ this bit o’ paper and that bit o’ paper for 
the walls. Took it out of hand, just when the bird’s-eye 
was in flower on the door-sill. Come trooping in, they 
did; some say as they come by a great coach as nobody 
ever see in these parts afore or since; but I’m of opinion 
as they come in a hearse. Howsoever, in they came. And 
Maister’s great-grandmother was the one to put fires for 
’em. And it was her and an old ancient man as welcomed 
’em. In they came, and went straight to the oak cupboard 
as is built into the kitchen wall. And one of ’em— a 
very owd-fashioned looking gentleman—stooped down and 
wrenched away the boards o’ the floor, as was loose, and 
they lugged up a great wooden box. Maister’s great¬ 
grandmother didna know what was in it, only from the 
weight it seemed to be she thought it wasna money. And 
with that, with no more ado about it, the four gentlemen 
picked up the box, and heaved it up on their shoulders, and 
the two ladies puck up each a can’lestick and they took 
off. But the thing as made Maister’s great-grandmother 
fall down in a swoon was how they went. For they 
walked straight through the kitchen dresser, plates and 
cups and all, and through the wall, box and all. And the 
thing as frittened the old lady worst was the way the blue 
willow-pattern of the dishes shone through the gentlemen’s 
greatcoats. Ah! there’s frittenen at the ‘Maiden,’ no 
danger. Much good may it do the new folks, whosoever 
they be.” 


95 


The Harper’s Forge 

“There isna nobody in these parts as ’ud care to take 
it on—a wold meandering place the like o’ that,” said 
Mrs. Makepeace. “I doubt it’ll be left for the ghosses 
for a spell.” 

Robert, eating his breakfast, saw the old house left to 
the ghosts, heard the strange sighings and groanings of a 
winter’s night there, and thought how fair a place it would 
be if he and Gillian owned it. Never, he supposed, in 
any place but one like this—half lapsed into Faery—would 
he and Gillian love one another unhindered. It would 
be grand to gather her up, angry or laughing, and stalk 
away with her to the old inn, and to speak a charm, and 
behold! inn and all would sink into Faery, and he and 
she—alone of the earth-born—would live there undis¬ 
turbed, drawing pewter measures of the tiniest capacity 
full of nectar for elves. 

“What’n you chuckling at?” queried his mother. 

“Nought, nought,” said Robert, with his mouth full. 

“What a lad! oh! what a lad!” Jonathan held up his 
hands in protest. ‘ r Allus chumbling things over in the 
mind of ’un, and that forgetful as I never see.” 

Robert rose abruptly. 

“I’m going to take the day off, Saturday, stepfeyther,” 
he announced, “so give an eye to the sheep, oot?” 

“What’ll Maister say?” 

“Maister can say what pleases un.” 

“Where be going, lad?” 

“I be going to see a mon, over the border, Mother. 
You’ll see to the lambs, wunna you—the while I do the 
jobs?” 

He was gone. 

“Now what work’s he after, going off on lonesome?” 
pondered his mother. But she knew it was quite useless 
to ask. For no migratory bird, with its journey mapped 
secretly in the recesses of its subconsciousness, could be as 
secretive as Robert when he did not choose to speak. Some¬ 
times she used to wonder whether Robert’s father could 


96 


Seven for a Secret 


have made him speak. Then she would sigh; for the 
older Robert grew, the more like his father he became,, 
and the more absolutely she loved him. In her courting 
days she had been so dominated by the dark beauty of 
John Rideout’s eyes that she had clung to the door half- 
fainting when he left her, and in her most rebellious, most 
loquacious moments he had only to turn his glance full 
upon her with a “Well, wench, what ails thee now?” and 
her heart would, as she said, “turn in her,” and the words 
and the anger would fall to silence. So whenever Robert 
did or said anything to remind her of these moments— 
moments of precious reality not known before nor since— 
she was grateful, and she would brush aside the wishes 
of the unfortunate Jonathan, as she brushed the fowls off 
their perches when they roosted in the wrong house. 

So when Saturday came, there was a wallet full of bread 
and cheese and a bottle of home-brewed for Robert, and 
he had no opposition to meet but Isaiah’s “Ha!” which, 
though very loud, was soon over. And at the time when 
the early bells were ringing in Silverton—for there were 
two “high” churches where there was an early service of 
some sort every day—and when Gillian was putting in the 
last hairpin and thinking how nice it was not to get up at 
six, Robert set out across the moor. 

The blinds were all down at the “Mermaid’s Rest,” and 
it saddened Robert to think of the stout, gay, motherly 
woman clinking her glasses no more. He looked away 
to the little coppice, the unket place, still unket though the 
snow was gone. A flash of water at its foot, a flash of 
bright moss-green on its side, a dreaming yellow in its 
larch boughs where the knops were swelling towards the 
leaves—why, then, was it so grievous? It must be what 
he had said to Gillian: evil had broken through there, or 
would—a horror, strong and fierce as some great beast, 
would split the solid earth and raven through the land. 
And again, like a warning bell, came the intuition that he 


The Harper s Forge 97 

would see it happen, that he must wrestle with something 
stupendous, even here at the gates of home. 

He strode on across the rolling brown of heather and 
dead bracken and bare wimberries. Plovers mourned 
softly, always a little withdrawn, and a hawk was present 
in the air above him for a time, and then was gone. The 
solitariness of hill and moor in winter is oppressive to some 
natures. It did not trouble Robert. No voice of shepherd 
or of sheep, no chirp or lark-song; only the snow-fed 
brooks rushing over their rocky beds, the plovers withdrawn 
like souls in trouble, the hawk silent as a leaf. A man’s 
country. Nothing soft or feminine was here to remind 
him of Gillian, except one white cloud that trailed softly 
half across the pale sky and had a spring-like presage in 
it—as if it were made of white narcissus or snowdrops, 
close packed like market-bunches of flowers. He would 
have made Gillian a posy like that, if he had been able to 
marry her, a posy packed so close with sweetness that you 
could not tell flower from flower (the subtleties of art 
were unknown to Robert: if he had known them he would 
probably have rejected them). He would have tied it 
firmly with strong string and encircled it with cut paper, 
and it would have been so large that both small hands 
would have had to hold it. And up the church she would 
have marched, gallus as a fairy, until she came to him, 
waiting there, caring not a pin for anybody. And then 
he’d have turned right round and given her a look, the look 
that he had to conquer and deny every time she was near 
him, and ten to one she would have dropped the posy 
plump at parson’s feet. 

Robert laughed aloud, and forthwith, being surrounded 
by so many kindly square miles of loneliness, he began to 
sing: 

“Gillian, Gillian, Gillian Rideout!” 

And the plovers, glancing in the light, answered him 
between their silver wings with silver cries, and alighting 


98 


Seven for a Secret 


here and there on bright green patches amid the heather, 
uplifted their crests and ran gleefully, hearing afar the 
step of the old magician, Spring, who sent green fire 
through the darkest places, and inebriated them with vi¬ 
tality and drove them to love, and gave them for a little 
while the freedom of the house of life. 

And Robert, forgetting that he was only cowman-shep¬ 
herd, and that Gillian was away, and that there were young 
men of position in Silverton, young men whose blood he 
longed to shed, uplifted his voice and sang: 

<f She’s lying on the white cloud as if it was a bed of flowers. 

If she was asleep, I would kiss her. 

The flowers smell as sweet as a May morning, 

And their petals are as white as milk. 

But her hand’s sweeter to kiss and her arm’s whiter. 

She’s like a golden plover running in the black yeath— 

But when I reach out my hands, she minds her as she’s got wings. 
I’ve a mind to buy a pair of silver shears 
And clip one wing ever so little, 

So you couldna fly away from me forever and ever, 

Gillian, Gillian, Gillian Lovekin!” 

“My ’ouns!” he remarked, as he sat down to have his 
dinner at mid-day. “It’s about time I went to see owd 
Conwy, it is that!” 

He faced to the East and thought of the Junction as 
he ate his bread and cheese, and it was borne in upon him 
that distance counts for very little, states of mind for 
very much. Isaiah’s state of mind, for instance, was more 
powerful than all the miles between here and Silverton, 
between here and London. Isaiah’s state of mind, im¬ 
pinging on his own, putting him on his honour and firing 
his pride, was the only thing that kept him apart from 
Gillian. Without it, he thought, it would not have taken 
him long to fetch her home. How many hours to Sil¬ 
verton, with his old stick for company and a song in his 
heart? And then? Well, then he would have her ambi¬ 
tion to fight, the longing for the world; “and she hankers 


The Harper’s Forge 99 

after them things summat cruel,” he thought. Still, there 
are surprises in love, raptures, agonies, that can wash away 
ambition like a shell on the shore. If not one wave, then 
another, the tenth wave, maybe. If not—then another 
ten. In time, the most landlocked shell must go. But 
there was always Isaiah. There was Gillian’s money. 
There was the opprobrious word—cowman-shepherd. 

He turned westwards again. It was the renunciation 
of fact for dream, and of life for poetry. He would set 
his whole mind on the mastering of this strange thing— 
poetry—this creature so unlike the creatures he had hitherto 
mastered and tended—this unbiddable creature, mysterious, 
white, wonderful, the fallow-deer of God. He thought 
of a fallow-deer, because there was a carving of deer on 
the high mantelpiece in the “Drover’s Arms” at Weeping 
Cross. So, like the young huntsman in the old legend, he 
set forth to follow the pale enchanted creature through 
the whispering forest of life for ever. 


chapter x: The Burning Heart 

T REWERN COED was a typical border village, not 
quite sure of its nationality, mingled in speech, 
divided between the white, blue-roofed cottages of Wales, 
and the red thatched ones of Shropshire. It lay in a hollow 
of the hills that were round it like a green-clad arm, and 
a broad shallow river washed its gardens. From far away 
Robert descried the forge cottage with its shed, and as he 
came up the road he heard the sharp sound of the hammer 
and saw the sudden tempest of sparks within when 
Gruffydd laid a heavy hand on the bellows. A tall man 
stood in the open doorway of the forge; Roberts eyes 
dwelt on him for a moment, and left him. He was not 
Gruffydd. He wore a fine greatcoat, smart leggings, and 
boots cleaned with blacking instead of dubbin. Some gen¬ 
tleman. Certainly not Gruffydd, the wild, the rough,. 
Gruffydd who, when he played on his harp looked, it was 
said, like an otter tearing the heart of a victim. In the 
red-lit shadows Robert saw the cause of the stranger’s pres¬ 
ence—a big chestnut cob that had cast a shoe. He looked 
round liquidly at Robert, knowing him to be a friend. 

“ ’Noon,” said the stranger. 

“Evenin’,” said Robert, for any time after twelve is 
called evening in Shropshire. 

“Why, lad,” cried Gruffydd in his musical, roaring 
voice, which, seemed, when he sang, to send out spark- 
storms of melody at the will of the mighty bellows in his 
chest, “why, thee’s the mon from Gwlfas, inna ye—as 
wrote me a letter and wanted me to learn ye in the 
music?” 

“Ah, I be, sir,” said Robert. 

The two large, rough-hewn personalities looked at each 
100 


The Burning Heart 101 

other, were aware of each other. The man in the door¬ 
way watched them. 

“It’s the pennillion, inna-d-it, the little pennillion as goes 
well to the strings?” 

“Ah.” 

“But you must sing ’em in the Welsh whatever, and 
I mind you said you have no Welsh, lad?” 

“No. But I shanna sing ’em to a harp. I canna play 
it.” 

“Oh, the little pennillion is married to the harp,” cried 
Gruffydd. “What for would you separate ’em?” 

“I shall only sing ’em a bit to myself, like, going to and 
agen on the farm. And maybe when I’m old I’ll write 
’em in a book.” 

“Twenty mile to come. Twenty mile to go,” mur¬ 
mured Gruffydd, “to sit in the smithy cottage and learn 
a pennillion. But he dunna want to play it, an’ he dunna 
want to sing it. What woman’s brought this upon you, 
lad? I see well as it’s the easement of the making of pen- 
nillions that you clem for. Hark ye: 

“Out of the white ash seven little blue flames j 
Not so terrible is the heat. 

Out of my burning heart seven pennillionsj 
And my heart is eased.” 

Robert flushed. The stranger laughed awkwardly, as 
if expostulating at emotion. But Gruffydd took no notice 
of him. Throughout the interview he treated him simply 
as the cob’s attendant, and not at all as a personality. 
To ease his shyness, Robert turned to the stranger and 
said: 

“Far to go?” 

“A good step. Nice bit of grazing country hereabouts.” 
“Ah.” 

“Cheap?” 

“Pretty fair. In some of the lost and forgotten places 
it’s nigh to be got for the asking.” 


102 


Seven for a Secret 


“Silverton’s a good way off, I suppose?” 

“A tidy step. It’s a good way from our place, and we’re 
twenty mile from this.” 

“What place ’ud that be?” 

“Dysgwlfas.” 

“Dysgwlfas. I’ve heard the name somewhere. Why, 
surely, that’s where Lovekin, the sheep-farmer, lives?” 

“Ah, that’s my master.” 

“Good land there?” 

“Ah, and cheap.” 

“Thought so. Trust owd Lovekin to find a comfortable 
place and stick to it. Never saw the marrow of Lovekin’s 
sheep for quality.” 

“Dealer yourself?” queried Gruffydd from beneath the 
cob, as he blacked over the newly shod hoof. 

“Ah, I do a bit in that line.” 

“Live or dead stock?” asked Robert. 

“Live. Buy to sell agen. Do a bit of farming as well.” 

“Come far?” 

“Dolgelly way.” 

“Good pasture?” 

“No fault to find with the pasture. Markets very 
middling.” 

“No rails nigh to your place?” 

“No.” 

“That’s one thing Maister’s alius pleased about,” said 
Robert,—“being so nigh the Junction.” 

For the life of him he could not keep down the flush 
and smile that the name conjured; and Gruffydd, leading 
out the cob, smiled into his beard and observed to his re¬ 
cording memory, that the young chap from Gwlfas had 
a girl at the Junction. 

“I’ve a good mind,” said the stranger as he flung him¬ 
self into the saddle with supple ease, “to pack my traps 
and come over the border to your place—it grows good 
sheep.” 

“And what ud the missus say, losing her folks the like 


The Burning Heart 103 

of that?” asked Gruffydd, blowing up the fire to finish his 
interrupted work. 

The stranger, half round in the saddle, faced the light 
of the forge fire. In his eyes, sparkled with dull red, there 
rose for a moment a curious look, not exactly shy, not 
exactly sullen, not quite brutal. It tenanted his face for 
a moment, then the harsh lines round his mouth slipped 
into a smile, and the look was gone. 

“Missus? I know better than to take a missus,” he 
said. “A housekeeper’s my choice, all the time—a working 
housekeeper, not the aunty-praunty, change-of-an-afternoon 
sort, and ‘The Last Rose of Summer’ on the piano. Some 
one as can keep at it!” 

Gruffydd chuckled. 

“Do they give you warning pretty frequent?” he asked. 

“No. The one I’ve got I’ve had for five years, and I 
don’t expect any change.” 

“Well, you’re a wunnerful man, indeed,” said Gruffydd, 
with the caressing gentleness that always preceded his most 
scarifying remarks. “A wunnerful man you be. Any 
children?” 

“No.” 

“Ah, you’ll wear the name out, no danger; but it’s fine 
for you, Mr. What’s-your-name, not to be werrited wi’ 
brats. You met be obleeged to part with a penny a day 
to keep ’em—oh, dear me!” 

The stranger’s face was dark red with anger, but not a 
word did he say. 

Robert was sorry for him, and remarked, as he chewed 
a bit of wheat out of his pocket: 

“If ever you come our way, I’m sure mother’ll be 
pleased to give you a glass of homebrewed, mister.” 

“Thank ye kindly,” said the stranger. “It’s a good 
country. No houses though, I doubt?” 

“Well, dang me,” said Robert, “if that inna rum. To¬ 
morrow as ever is they be taking poor Mrs. Thatcher to 
the churchyard, and the ‘Mermaid’s Rest’ ’ll be to set.” 


104 


Seven for a Secret 


“ ‘Mermaid’s Rest?’ Why, surely, that’s the old public 
off the road from Weeping Cross to Mallard’s Keep?” 
“Ah.” 

“I was past there once, I mind it well. I got a quart 
there. Queer, seafaring sort of a sign. Don’t they call 
it the ‘Naked Maiden’?” 

“Ah.” 

“That’s the inn for the fellows, no danger.” 

“Oh, there’s few as passes.” 

“I could bant them a bit in the price, could I?” 

“The rent, like?” 

“No, I don’t rent, I buy.” 

“You’d get it for a song,” said Robert. 

“Thank you kindly. I’ll bait there to-night if they’ll 
take me in.” 

“And glad to, I reckon, if you dunna mind a corpse in 
the house.” 

The dealer laughed. 

“Corpse? No. Dead sheep don’t blaat. Can I come 
along with you when you go?” 

He liked Robert; why, he could not tell. Perhaps it 
was a certain simplicity, that gave an impression—not at 
all a true one—of gullibility and workableness. Perhaps 
it was the same thing that made the cob nuzzle against his 
coat. Whatever it was, he liked Robert much better than 
Robert liked him. 

“I shanna be coming back till well on to night,” said 
Robert. “Wouldna you sooner get on? The weather ’ll 
break afore midnight, likely.” 

“No, I’ll wait. I mislike trapesing over the miles with¬ 
out a soul to speak to. I’ll wait at the public.” 

“A’right.” 

“My name’s Elmer—Ralph Elmer.” 

“Mine’s Robert Rideout.” 

Said Gruffydd afterwards, as he fetched his harp from 
the corner of his kitchen, where it stood reverently 
shrouded: 


The Burning Heart 105 

“Cag-mag. That’s what he deals in. That’s what he 
is. Cag-mag.” 

Robert, with the consciousness of facing slumbering 
power that comes to even less sensitive people than he in 
the presence of a great personality, accepted and recorded 
the remark, and then as the first notes sounded and the 
great voice of Gruffydd filled the cottage with mascu¬ 
line sweetness—stern, gracious, irresistible—he forgot all 
about it. 

Not until their talk was over, and the illustrations to 
the talk, twanged out with a sweet monotony in the fire- 
lit dusk, had fallen silent, did Robert have a thought to 
spare for anything in heaven or earth. Then Gruffydd’s 
wife came in, stealing softly from kitchen to parlour, where 
the fire was lit in honour of Saturday afternoon and Rob¬ 
ert, with the tray of blue willow china and the big brown 
loaf, and the skep-shaped brown earthenware honey-jar— 
and he remembered the time. 

“You mun sup,” said Gruffydd, “for if there’s one 
thing the music and the little pennillions do for me it’s to 
give me a bellyache of emptiness. I mun eat after I’ve 
sung. It stands to reason in bird and man.” 

So Mrs. Conwy poured out the good strong tea and the 
liberal cream, and cut bread and butter, and looked softly 
on the two men—motherly at Robert, wifely at Gruffydd 
—and spoke a little, but not too much, for she had the 
gifts of sympathy and of silence. And it was not till the 
quiet of the countryside was deepened by layer on layer 
of night, and the rolling fields and the moor were silvered 
by moonlight, and the owls were questing, that Robert 
drew the back of his hand across his mouth and rose 
with: 

“Thank you for me, Mr. and Mrs. Conwy.” 

“Come agen, lad, come agen,” cried Gruffydd, with 
the ready kindliness of the artist. 

At the inn by the ford, with the reins over his arm, stood 
Elmer, in the countryman’s attitude of tireless patience. 


106 


Seven for a Secret 


“Ride and tie, shall we?” he said, pointing to the saddle. 

“Thank you kindly, I’m sure.” 

“You have first go.” 

He watched narrowly while Robert swung into the 
saddle, and his manner became more cordial. 

“You’re used to riding,” he said. 

“Ah, time and agen.” 

“You look to me as if you’d learnt to ride bareback.” 

“That’s gospel,” said Robert. 

“What for?” 

“Well,” said Robert, with a chary smile, “there was a 
wench, and she thought as a fellow was no good if he 
couldna ride the worst horseflesh bareback.” 

“So you did it?” 

“Ah.” 

“What did she say? Gave you what you wanted, eh?” 

“She said nowt, for she knew nowt. And I didna want 
nowt.” 

Elmer roared. 

“Not much give an’ take in these parts,” he remarked. 
“Does she live hereabouts?” 

“No.” 

“Where then?” 

“I take no account of her doings nor her place of resi¬ 
dence,” said Robert loftily. “If you dunna mind, I’ll 
canter on a bit and come back. The cob’s a bit fresh.” 

He was away into the silver country, which looked as 
if the light had congealed upon it in great lumps and 
ingots. Elmer mused as he walked on alone. It was a 
good country, better than the mountain-folded hamlet of 
which his holding was a lost outpost. His home life, too, 
would bear mending, though no power on earth would 
have made him say so. This fellow with the pleasant 
smile, it would be companionable to have him in for the 
evening, especially when Rwth was in one of her sullen 
moods. He would have red curtains in the bar parlour. 


The Burning Heart 107 

and plenty of brass and pewter (what was Rwth for if 
not to clean it?) and some good whiskey. Sometimes, lie 
would ask old Lovekin, and pick his brains, and sometimes 
Rideout and he would have a randy and a good laugh. 
Rideout looked as if he could laugh, for all his grave inno¬ 
cence of bearing; he—Ralph—would try some of his 
bawdy stories on him. And there was always the enor¬ 
mous jest of living at the sign of the Naked Maiden. It 
was a good centre too. He could reach more of the big 
fairs and auctions on his cob than he could now, and he 
could go to the Junction for very distant ones. 

He began to whistle between his teeth, not loudly, like 
a bird, as Robert did. He sped on with the lissom, elastic 
grace, a little like the grace of a weasel, that marked all 
his movements. Now and then he switched his brown 
gaiters and his breeches of Bedford cord with his riding 
whip (refused by Robert) and there was something in the 
way he did this that conjured up a vision of a far away 
Rwth, savage, sullen and tearful, suffering instead of the 
leggings. If an owl swooped low over a hedge, or a bat 
squeaked close by, Ralph’s pointed ears seemed to prick 
slightly, his keen, pale eyes, which had nothing liquid about 
them, but were hard, like pebbles, were focussed shrewdly 
on the intruder and then impatiently withdrawn. 

Robert came galloping back. 

“Your turn now, mister,” he said. 

“You can say Elmer, if you’ve a mind,” said the other, 
and behind his harsh manner was the wistfulness of the 
wilfully lonely soul, of the selfish soul which will not trust 
itself in the deep seas of humanity, and is left high and 
dry on the gritty shore, and is sometimes afraid. “Or 
Ralph,” he added, to his own surprise. 

“Bob for me, then, but if you’m going to be a friend 
of the gaffer’s, I dunna see as we can call each other the 
like of thatn. It ud mortify the owd mon.” 

“We’ll say nought when he’s there, then. Old folks 


Seven for a Secret 


108 

are bad to cross. But when we’re alone, my lad, I’ll learn 
you a thing or two, see if I don’t. Maybe we’ll get a piano 
at the ‘Naked Wench’ and get some girls in.” 

He slapped Robert on the back, and took his turn in 
the saddle. Robert, walking stolidly on, hoped that Gil¬ 
lian would stay in Silverton a long time. He had not 
hoped this before. Now he did, intensely. The sparks 
that came into Elmer’s cold eyes at the mention of the 
randy, would flash into Gillian’s in a second and ignite 
God knows what fire in her wild heart. 

“Lord only knows what’ll come to pass if they meet,” 
he thought. “I wish I’d kept a still tongue. Send him 
a stiff price as he canna pay.” And half consciously, as 
he walked with his ungraceful ploughman’s gait over the 
aromatic crushed bracken, his left hand crept beneath his 
Sunday sleeve, beneath his coarse blue and white shirt, to 
the muscle that came and went obediently, hard and full 
as a cricket ball, between his heavy shoulder and his ma¬ 
hogany coloured elbow. 

So, turn and turn about, they traversed the twenty miles 
very quickly. When they came to the top of the slope 
leading down to the “Mermaid’s Rest,” Robert was riding, 
and Elmer saw him outlined on the pale sky, not graceful, 
but broodingly strong. Below him, the inn with its hud¬ 
dled roofs, its bright, pale-green square of winter cabbage 
and dark blur of orchard, its small windows gleaming for¬ 
lornly, its whole air proclaiming that within it held not a 
revelry, not a bridal chamber, not a new born child, but 
corruption. Dimly aware of discomfort of soul, Ralph 
turned to the surrounding country, and his gaze travelled 
over it. There, lower than the inn, one field away from 
the browny-white ribbon of road, lay the unket place—a 
long inky smudge with a long silver streak of water below. 
He stiffened a little, like a dog at a new scent, pricked his 
ears slightly, stared. And out of nowhere, like the faint 
lament of a sheep from cloudy heights, came the knowl¬ 
edge that this place was prepared for him, had always been 


The Burning Heart 109 

waiting for him, quietly and unobtrusively, and would not 
let him go until what must be had been accomplished. 

Weirdly, alarmedly, he turned his eyes upwards to 
Robert’s moonlit face. Robert was looking at it, too. No 
sound came from the vast, surrounding country, the mys¬ 
terious sky, the death-enfolding homestead. Even the two 
men, so alive, so real, with the bright blood in their cheeks 
and the sweat of their galloping still in their armpits, even 
they held their breath, staring into one another’s souls, but 
seeing only the unket place. Then suddenly, as if at the 
releasing of a spring, Elmer withdrew his eyes, unpricked 
his ears, loosened his taut muscles, laughed with a curious 
forced dismalness, and said: 

“Who’s for the ‘Naked Wench’ and a measure of 
whiskey?” 

All was dark at the inn. 

“Tabor on the door,” said Robert. 

Ralph knocked, and hollow sounds ran down the pas¬ 
sages. Then a wild head appeared at an Upstairs window, 
and Thatcher said: 

“Who be that, drumming on door?” 

“Me,” said Robert. “Here’s a chap wants a shake- 
down and a mug of beer or summat, and he dunna mind 
payin’ for what he wants. And seein’ the expense you’ve 
been under, I thought you wouldna mind.” 

“You’re kindly welcome, sir,” said Thatcher, “and if 
you inna afraid of my poor missus ’ere, you can take pot 
luck, and I’ll give you my bed—for that’s all we’ve got, 
saving the little uns’ bed. Rideout here knows as the 
sticks of furniture’s gone bit by bit, for times be bad.” 

“Where’s the body, then?” asked Robert. 

“On the palliasse on the table in the parlour,” said 
Thatcher. “It wouldna do to have her upstairs wi’ the 
little uns about. Yo can see her if yo’ve a mind.” 

Robert, with country courtesy, accepted. They went 
into the parlour, up three crazy oak stairs from the flagged 
kitchen. On the table, covered with a sheet, lay the stone- 


110 


Seven for a Secret 


still figure. In her folded hands Thatcher had put a bit 
of silver honesty. “For an honest woman she was, and 
a tidy,” said he with a heavy sigh. “And it’s bad to be 
left with a two year child, and nobody to do so much as 
a bit o’ washing.” 

“Ah.” 

“I mun find another, I reckon, but I shanna better poor 
Minnie. When your time comes to choose, Bob, take care 
you dunna go for a gallus eye and a flaming cheek and a 
white bosom. Watch ’er, my lad. Watch ’er for a tuthree 
week, a tuthree month. See ’er on a Monday at the wash- 
tub. See ’er with a chyild. Harken at ’er chaffering at 
market. Drum ’er up early in the morning and see if she 
flies into a tantrum. If she does—go wi’out ’er.” 

Robert, standing beside the shrouded figure of the per¬ 
fect wife, saw, conjured by love in the close, death-scented 
place, Gillian the desired, the radiant: Gillian, whose cheek 
flamed, whose eye was gallus, whose bosom—ah! he must 
not think of that—Gillian who would have failed in every 
one of those examinations. 

“I’ll get Mr. Elmer’s supper for you, if you’ve a mind,” 
he said eagerly, “and I wish there was more I could do. 
|You needna bant the price,” he added, “he can pay for 
what he wants.” 

Elmer was smoking by the dying fire, sitting in a corner 
of the settle. Robert brought in an armful of chips, and 
the fire roared in the wide chimney; then he helped 
Thatcher to make a bed for himself on the floor upstairs; 
he opened the huge cupboard of black oak that filled a 
recess in the kitchen, and brought out a rough repast. 
Elmer was not dainty. He tossed off glass after glass of 
the weak whiskey, looking round the room with an apprais¬ 
ing eye, noting the pewter measures on the dresser, the 
bread-oven built of brick, in a corner, the built-in cup¬ 
boards, the soot-encrusted, solid beams. 

“It’ll weather a tuthree storms before it’s done,” he 
observed, removing his pipe and spitting into the fire. 


Ill 


The Burning Heart 

“Ah, it wunna built for a day.” 

“Who baits here mostly?” 

“There’s a tuthree come by to fairs and market, and 
there’s a minister comes by of a Sunday, and gets his 
dinner, and there’s two farms over yonder where the chaps 
come from, evenings, and stepfeyther and me come, and 
now and agen a waggoner lugging lime or summat from 
the Keep, and gipsies and a pedlar or two, and a carrier, 
Fridays. That’s all as I mind.” 

“But in the old days it must ha’ bin a prospering 
place?” 

“Oh, ah! Folk all travelled by road then, and it was 
twenty mile from any dwelling, saving our farm. There 
was a mort of folks came by then—the coach tuthree days 
a week, and carriers and run-away couples and dear-knows- 
what. Highwaymen, they seyn, too. Larders and cellars 
was kept full then. And our maister’s grandfeyther was 
used to say it was a sight to see on a frosty night, when 
the landlord and the maids and men turned out for the 
coach. They’d hear the horn whining acrost the moor, 
and the coach ud come spanking up, and then there’d be a 
to-do. They’d all got to be thawed and fed.” 

“Good money flying about then, I bet,” said Elmer. 
“But I’ve a mind to see if I can’t beat up a bit of business, 
though them days are gone. Rwth can be barmaid, and 
Fringal can see to things when I’m away.” 

“Who be they?” 

“Rwth’s my housekeeper. Fringal’s my man.” 

“There’d be three of you to keep the ghosses out, then.” 
“Ah.” 

“And when you wed-” 

“I shan’t.” 

Again the peculiar look of the afternoon was in his eyes. 

“I thought maybe you’d got your eye on some one,” said 
Robert, wistfully. If only Elmer would marry, he need 
not be so afraid for Gillian. 

“I’ve no mind for a wife. Argling and bargling: this 



112 


Seven for a Secret 


not to her pleasure, that not to her mind. Rights of bed 
and board: grumbling if there’s no brat, grumbling if 
there’s too many. You’re not your own man if you’ve 
got a wife, Rideout.” 

With a suppressed, agonising power, a great flood of 
longing rose up in Robert’s heart—longing for that very 
argling and bargling, that grumbling, those divine rights 
of bed and board. Again, very delicate and vivid, Gillian 
stood before him—flushed, as she was in her tantrums. 
Oh, God! to hear her grumbling—grumbling at not hav¬ 
ing any children! 

He dashed the bottle down on the table by Elmer. 

“Here! help yerself,” he cried. “I’m off.” 

As he strode through the meditative night, he felt sick 
with passion, frantic with longing, with tenderness. And 
with the acute intuition of the poet he saw that Gillian 
would assuredly come back; that she would meet Elmer; 
that Elmer’s philosophy of self would go down before the 
passion she would arouse; that maybe she would be his. 

When he came to that, Robert stood still in the middle 
of the moor. A faintness and weakness melted his heart, 
his limbs. He trembled like an animal that has seen a 
spirit. 

“Oh, Lord,” he whispered huskily, “it’s coming. I can 
see it, I can hear it. Blackness of darkness! And I 
fetched the chap here, fool that I be.” 

The farm and the cottage, the huddled ricks, the great 
crossed and twisted boughs of the orchard, riddled with 
moonlight, slept. The black-purple moat of shadow slept 
beneath. Only the white owl went her soundless way, like 
a pale spirit of evil, incandescent with phantasmal sin. 


chapter xi : Isaiah Asks a Question 

I ONG before daylight, Robert lit his candle and wrote 
* a letter to Gillian. 

“Miss Gillian, 

“I wish to acquaint you as poor Mrs. Thatcher’s 
gone, thinking you met like to send a wreath or summat 
for the grave. All very quiet and lonesome here. Nobody 
comes by in a week of Sundays. Mother heard tell at 
market as the May Fair at Silverton was to be summat 
odd this year. 

“With respects, and I keep the picture on the mantel 
shelf. 

“Robt. Rideout.” 

With a slightly grim, slightly gratified smile, Robert 
addressed the letter in his firm handwriting, that recalled 
stiles and five-barred gates and solid fencing, and put it 
in his pocket till the postman should come by on Monday. 
Downstairs Abigail was early about, for a Sunday funeral 
in which all were free to partake was something that did 
not happen every day. She was glad her black merino 
was so respectable. She had pinned it up under her apron. 
Jonathan’s black coat was airing by the fire, and Jonathan 
himself, sleepy after a night in the lambing-hut, sat on the 
settle, persuading his crepe hat-band to lie smoothly round 
his hat. Mrs. Thatcher would have been gratified if she 
had seen the stir that her funeral was making—in lambing¬ 
time, too, the most absorbing season of the year at the 
Gwlfas. 

“That black-faced ewe’s dropped three lambs,” said 
Jonathan as Robert came in, “and two mean dying.” 

113 


114 


Seven for a Secret 


It was obvious that he did not dream of opposing them. 
If they meant to die, they would, for all Jonathan 
would do. 

“Where be they?” 

“Along of the rest. Her’s in such a taking, her wouldna 
let me shift ’em. Where be going?” 

“To shift ’em.” 

He was gone. 

“What a lad! What a restless, never-to-be-plased lad! 
Why dunna he leave ’em? They mean dying, any road.” 

“Robert wunna let ’em die.” 

“Where’d the ship a’ been yesterday if it hadna been 
for me? What a lad!—maundering off on lonesome in 
lambing-time! ” 

“Well, it inna often as the lad takes dog’s leave, be it?” 

“It minds me of the tale of poor Joey Linny, poor soul. 
He was used to go wandering about, and onst he come 
unbeknownst into a triple fairy-ring, and they got ’im. 
Ah! they seyn it were like that in times gone. Folk burnt 
witches then, and ducked ’em and dear knows what. And 
things was different. Any road, the fairies cotched poor 
Joey Linny, and away-to-go. But they seyn as now and 
agen at thrashing-time, of an evening, when it’s a bit wild 
and wet, you’ll see a white, peaky face at the windy, with 
a bit of wispy hair flying in the wind, and it cries: 

u ‘Ninny, Ninny, 

Poor Joey Linny!* 

That’s what your Robert’ll come to, mark my words.” 

Mrs. Makepeace laughed. 

“I reckon they’ll be after you first, Jonathan, my dear,” 
she said. “They’d find our Bob too lungeous for ’em.” 

When the breakfast things were washed up, dinner put 
to simmer, the fire “douted,” Jonathan arrayed, and the 
safety-pin removed from Mrs. Makepeace’s dress, they set 
out. Robert, returning with the rescued lambs, after 
seeing to the ewes, sat down to his late breakfast in great 


Isaiah Asks a Question 115 

content. He considered that his letter would keep Gillian 
where she was till May; that between now and then a 
roving, devil-may-care fellow like Elmer, just come to a 
new country, would surely pick up a sweetheart, and all 
would be well. Whatever happened, Robert was quite 
determined that Elmer should not marry Gillian. When 
he had finished his jobs and put on his Sunday clothes, he 
sat down to think over all that Gruffydd had told him 
about the making of poetry. There was a knock, and 
Elmer came in. 

“Can’t make anybody hear at the farm,” he said. 

“No. Maister’s at the funeral.” 

“Aren’t there any other folks?” 

“No.” 

“No missus?” 

“He’s a widow.” 

“Any children?” 

“One.” 

“Girl?” 

“Ah.” 

“Where’s she?” 

“Away.” 

“For good?” 

“Ah, I’m thinking it’s for good.” 

“Well, if it’s all the same to you, I’ll wait till he 
comes.” 

“Ah. Bide and welcome.” 

They went round the farm, talking in a desultory way. 
It became clear to Robert that Ralph intended to buy the 
inn. He was going to see the owner to-morrow, on his 
way home. To-day he wanted to see Isaiah to bespeak 
some lambs. 

They were in the sheep fields when they saw the gig far 
off, like a bright, clockwork toy on the immensity of the 
moor. They awaited it at the wicket. 

“Ha!” said Isaiah, and Elmer not only looked found 
out, but flinched. 


Seven for a Secret 


ill 6 

Isaiah had his measure. 

His “Ha!” had never failed him. It was a good touch¬ 
stone. As a woman says risky things to gauge the men 
of her acquaintance, so Isaiah said “Ha!” Because Elmer 
had flinched, he had to pay more for the lambs than they 
were really worth. If he had only looked found out, he 
might have had them for about the correct price. If he 
had been undisturbed, he would have got them at a bar¬ 
gain. “The battle to the strong” was Isaiah’s motto. Still, 
he did not object to Elmer. He reverenced his money. 
He had a vision, as he sat opposite to his guest at dinner— 
served by Mrs. Makepeace—and helped him as lavishly as 
he liked to help himself to thick red slices of undercut, 
lumps of fat, and slabs of pudding, of all Elmer’s money 
being gently, quietly, but irrevocably transferred from 
Elmer’s bank to his. 

He sat at the end of the table, mountainous behind the 
mountainous beef, with the carving knife and fork in his 
hands, and considered Elmer across the clean Sunday table¬ 
cloth with its severe appointments—two vegetable dishes, 
two jugs of beer, bread, cheese, sauce and gravy, cruets. 
Isaiah liked the necessities of life to be plain, plentiful and 
permanent, and he cared for nothing else. Observing 
Elmer’s face, with that vague hint of underlying weakness 
somewhere, he came to the conclusion that Elmer would 
eventually become a necessity—if he turned out well. He 
would, if he turned over money quickly, did up the “Mer¬ 
maid,” owned a few horses and many sheep, make a good 
match for Gillian. Particularly did Isaiah wish this when 
the two or three weak lines showed through the general 
hardness of his new friend’s face. A pleasant, harmless 
fellow, Isaiah judged him, with capacities for dissoluteness 
checked for monetary reasons. A man who would always 
go for the main chance, the paying thing. A sensible man, 
and one that might with judicious “Ha”-ing, be made quite 
biddable. Healthy, too. Isaiah did not want Gillian’s 
children to be sickly. It transpired during the meal that 


Isaiah Asks a Question 117 

Elmer’s people lived somewhere in the Midlands, and were 
very respectable and of good standing. Lastly—the emo¬ 
tional reason always came last with Isaiah—it would mean 
that Gillian would be near him, only just across the moor. 
It was surprising what a gap her departed laughter and 
footsteps had left in his life—in spite of the fact that he 
was far more comfortable with Mrs. Makepeace in calm 
and undivided control of his digestion. 

“You’ll be lugging a sweet’art along of you out of 
Wales, no danger?” said Isaiah tentatively. 

Ralph looked up with a startled expression. 

“Oh, no,” he said hurriedly. “I don’t care for the 
Welsh.” 

“And what for not?” 

“Too small, too stocky, too sallow.” 

“You favour size?” 

“I like a girl with a fresh face and a little waist—a bit 
of colour about the place—and not too tall, nor yet too 
little. But I never look at ’em. I’m not a marrying man. 
Too expensive.” 

“Ha! But if you did, it ud be one with a bit of colour 
and a little waist.” 

Isaiah smiled upon Ralph. He had so exactly described 
Gillian. 

“Pudden?” he said, and helped Elmer lavishly to the 
honest, solid mass of raisins and suet, eggs, treacle and 
flour, called “Sunday Pudding”—perhaps because only in 
the vast leisure of Sunday could it have been digested. 

“I alius liked a trim waist and a fresh colour myself,” 
mused Isaiah aloud. “My missus had ’em, and there 
wasn’t a tidier wench in the countryside when I took her 
to church.” 

A faint illumination came into Elmer’s eyes. 

“I suppose your girl takes after her?” he queried po¬ 
litely. 

“Ah.” 

“Pretty then?” 


118 


Seven for a Secret 


“Middling pretty.” 

“But away?” 

“Away for a bit. A tidy bit, I shouldn’t wonder.” 

“But she’ll come back?” 

“Ha!” 

Elmer jumped, and by jumping revealed to Isaiah the 
thoughts which the “Ha” seemed to have been pointing at. 
Isaiah went on composedly with his dinner. 

“She’s with her aunties,” he vouchsafed. “And there 
she’ll stop for a while. Plenty of young fellows there, 
seemingly, as likes a slim waist and a fresh colour.” 

“Is she walking out with anybody?” 

“She knows better. She’ll bide at home till her dad 
says ‘walk out.’ ” 

Elmer laughed softly. In the laugh was the secret glee 
of youth in its own freemasonry. This middle-aged man 
might be the best sheep breeder anywhere round, he might 
be a terror for making money, but with regard to his own 
daughter, Elmer judged him a fool. He’d soon see 
whether old Lovekin’s daughter would bide at home if he 
—Ralph Elmer—said “walk out.” 

“But you’re not a marrying man,” said Isaiah slowly; 
and Elmer blushed up to his hair at the implied discovery 
of his inmost thoughts. 

Isaiah was pleased with him for blushing—it was a con¬ 
fession of his own power. And what a foil for Rideout! 
Once those sparks were well lit in Elmer’s eyes, Isaiah 
judged that most things—cowmen-shepherds included— 
would go down before his eagerness in attaining his desire. 

“Well,” he said, “we’ll have our bit of a smoke and 
a nap now, and then I’ll show you the lambs. . . . Can 
you ride well?” he added carelessly. 

“Ride? I should hope so. I haven’t met what I can’t 
ride yet.” 

“Ha!” 

They established themselves by the fire with pipes and 
newspapers. After half an hour Isaiah looked up. 


Isaiah Asks a Question 119 

“If you take the lot,” he said, “you can have the lambs 
for a shilling per head less than what I priced ’em at. 
And I priced ’em dirt cheap, God knows.” 

“Thank ye kindly,” said Elmer; and while Isaiah dozed, 
he smiled into the fire. The question about riding had 
revealed to him not only Robert’s secret but Isaiah’s. It 
was Lovekin’s daughter who had inspired Robert to ride 
with daring. Robert then was in love with her. Isaiah 
was enquiring for some one else to ride into his daughter’s 
heart. That is to say, Isaiah did not want a cowman for 
son-in-law. And the girl? Evidently the girl’s ideal was 
a fellow just like himself. 

He smoothed his thin, jutting jaw, his sleek hair, his 
long, thin legs in their smart cord and leather, smiling 
a little with pleased vanity. 

“Damn it!” he thought, “I’d like to oblige ’em all, walk 
in and win the girl, waist and colour and bankbook and 
all—only-” 

A dark, gloomy, harried expression suddenly swept over 
his complacent face, like a cloud distilled from wild black 
mountains sweeping its heavy shades over a prosperous dairy 
country. 



chapter xii : At the Sign of the Maiden 



ELL, Mother,” said Jonathan, coming in soused 


with rain one wild early morning at the end of 


February, “this be Febriwerry-fill-ditch and no mistake. 
A sight for ducks! You’d best moble up afore you go to 
the house.” 

“Inna Mr. Elmer moving in to-day?” asked Mrs. Make¬ 
peace, as Robert came in. 

“Ah, dang it all. And it’s me that’s got to go and 
give a hand.” 

“Well, it’s to be hoped that housekeeper of hisn’s got a 
good stout coat on ’er back, and not the sort of Welsh 
gotherum as Miss Gillian favours,” said Mrs. Makepeace, 
and her brown eyes softly observed Robert. “And, talking 
of Miss Gillian, Maister had a letter from her yesterday.” 

Robert was very busy doing up his leggings. 

“She’s been gallivanting on the river,” continued his 
mother, “and some gentleman along of her, and—oh, no, 
Bob, she’s not drownded.” 

“Engaged to be married?” said Robert. 

“You breathe that word ‘married,’ ” said Jonathan, “as 
if it was one and the same as drownded. Yo mind me of 
the tale of Chamfrey Parrish—old Sir Chamfrey Parrish 
of Boltings End. ’E mun ha’ bin a caution! His daugh¬ 
ter was to be wed, and they sent a sight of bidding letters 
and ordered the feast and the fine clo’es. But old Sir 
Chamfrey would have all the men’s coats (they was poor 
relations, and he gi’d ’em their coats, like) lined with 
black. They was bottle-blue coats on top. And all the 
women’s cloaks as he gi’d was rose-colour, but he made 
them be lined with black, too. And his daughter met cry, 
and the folks met look glum, but it was wear ’em or away- 


120 


At the Sign of the Maiden 121 

to-go. Well, Miss Matilda was ready and the bridesmaids 
was ready to follow ’er, and the chaps lined up in their 
bottle blue. And there come one running, and he says, 
‘The groom’s shot ’isself with his feyther’s blunderbus!’ 
They was in a taking then, all but old Sir Chamfrey. And 
he says: ‘Turn your coats!’ ’e says. And they whispered 
a bit and fidgeted a bit, and somebody ups and says: ‘But 
you couldna know he’d do it?’ And Sir Chamfrey turns 
round very quiet-like and says: ‘I knowed Matilda!’ he 
says. Eh! He must ha’ bin a caution, must old Sir 
Chamfrey.” 

Mrs. Makepeace, who had been slowly persuading the 
oven door to shut without sound, now clapped it to with 
some relief. She never interrupted a story of Jonathan’s; 
she always laughed in the right places; but a sorrow was 
in her heart for the man who had never told a tale in his 
life and would listen to the tales of others with a quiet, 
ironical slow smile. 

“Engaged to be married, Mother?” said Robert, like a 
man half-stifling in deep water. 

“Neither engaged, nor like to be, my dear. But the 
poor gentleman took a chill, and he’s very bad, and Miss 
Gillian blamed for it, seemingly, along of being so ven¬ 
turesome, ’ticing him on the water in cold weather.” 

“But, Lord love you, Mother, what a little nesh thing 
like Gillian can do, a great strong fellow can do, surely,” 
said Robert. 

“He inna strong, nor young, lad, and you’d best mind 
how you call her Gillian afore maister.” 

But Robert, whistling like a tree full of birds, had gone 
out into the driving rain. 

With the rain slashing his face, and the wet heather 
thrashing against his legs, and a day’s work for a man he 
did not like before him, he yet whistled every one of 
Gruffydd’s tunes that he could remember. There was a 
rift of rainy blue afar; the voices of lambs were uplifted 
with tremulous young eagerness, Spring was on her way 


122 


Seven for a Secret 


here, she only tarried a little in the mountains of the 
South, and Gillian—Gillian—Gillian was not engaged to 
be married. 

Robert set his hands on the high fence between the 
Gwlfas fields and the moor, and was over in a flash, be¬ 
cause Gillian was not betrothed. As he went he made a 
little song: 

Spring’s asleep over yonder 
In the mountains to the South, 

With a rose on her mouth, 

And Gillian’s asleep in the East. 

There’s ice on the pool, in the fold 
Man and beast wander, 

Starved wi’ cold. 

Spring’ll call us to mind 
And the wood lark’ll sing 
Bits of green grass’ll spring, 

There’ll be yellow-gold on the gorse, 

Wheat pricking through the loam. 

But there’s one’ll be winter-blind 
Till Gillian’s raught home. 

When he had made it, he sang it, and the plovers, equally 
intoxicated, answered him through the grey walls of rain 
that stood up on either side of him like the walls of a glass 
corridor. 

There was no sign of Elmer or his belongings, only the 
wreckage of the Thatchers’ move, bits of straw and paper, 
broken glass and boxes, dead plants in pots, and forlorn 
stalks of cotton grass that grew along the fence. Robert 
had the key, which Elmer had left with him. He went 
in, gathered up the rubbish from the kitchen floor, and 
made a fire. He was very handy. 

“Now,” he said, “when they come it wunna take two 
shakes to open a box o’ china and get ’em a cup o’ tea. 
That poor wench’ll be starved with cold if she’s anywhere 
near as nesh as Gillian. If Gillian was—if Pd the say in 


At the Sign of the Maiden 123 

what she wore, Fd buy her a great thick pilot coat like 
Mr. Mooney’s uncle’s at Weeping Cross when he come 
back from the sea. Ah! I’d lap her up in that, and a 

tuthree rugs and-” he stretched out his arms—“and 

these,” he said. “Dear-a-me, where did I put them 
matches?” 

Silence in the old hostel. Only the whistling of the 
windlestraws, the distant gnawing of a rat. (And what 
is more desolate than the daylight gnawing of rats and 
mice?) The windows, washed with water, were like the 
windows of an under-ocean castle, with the grey swell of 
the heavy, stirless sea threatening to cave them in. 

Robert fetched the well-pail full of water, and a dis¬ 
carded broom, and sluiced the kitchen flags. Then he sat 
down before the fire on a sugar-box to smoke and wait. 
At last there came a faint sound, a slight disturbance of 
the apparently permanent silence and loneliness. It grew, 
resolved itself into a thudding, a rattling, but no voices. 
A dour homecoming, with no voices, no laughter, no 
pleasant give-and-take nor merriment nor cajolery! 

“Well!” thought Robert, “they’re very mum. Still on, 
it be only the feller’s housekeeper and the odd man. It 
inna a bride as comes whome.” 

The sound resolved itself into a blur of darkness, two 
pricked ears, breathing, steam, and Elmer’s voice: 

“That you, Rideout?” 

“Ah.” 

“We’re as late as bitter apples,” said Elmer. “We’ve 
had the devil’s own luck, and the waggons got stuck a 
mile back in that bit o’ slough at the brook head. But 
they’re coming along now. This” (with a sideways nod) 
“is Rwth. She’s dumb.” 

“Dumb!” 

“Ah. She’s a foundling—a dumb foundling. I gave 
her a job out of pity. She’s a pelroilicky creature, and 
feckless. But I keep her. She’d be on the roads else.” 

“On the roads else,” repeated Robert, stupidly. And 



124 


Seven for a Secret 


still he stared and stared at the woman in the gig. Still 
he felt, as he put it, that his heart had turned to water. 

Dumb! And of so great a lostness in the enormous 
world! No people. No voice. No love. No anything. 
And there she sat, with the atmosphere of lostness so thick 
about her that it was almost impossible to speak to her. 
As soon shout “Ahoy!” to a lightless boat, as Mr. Mooney’s 
uncle had once done—shout “Ahoy!” to a boat full of 
silence and see it (as Mr. Mooney’s uncle swore he had 
done) silently manned with ghosts. In the vast nonentity 
that this woman inhabited, what was a word? 

The windlestraws bent to the rain, the heather sighed 
beneath it. Still Robert looked at the woman whose abode 
was silence. What was it? She was, as Elmer said, feck¬ 
less. She was pelrollicky. Her dark, wispy hair hung 
about her face forlornly. But her face! Carved in some 
fiercer mould than the faces he knew, carved out of dark, 
riven granite, tortured, grim and wild—yet somehow beau¬ 
tiful. And her eyes! Yes! There lay the secret. It 
was in her eyes. Black; not velvet-black, but that rarer 
thing, clear lucent black, like moonlit ebony water in a 
mill-race. Clear black, with the pupils like velvet, lashed 
heavily with coarse lashes, thickly and heavily browed, and 
much too large for her colourless face. Such was the 
savage, the anguished savage, who went by the common¬ 
place title of Elmer’s housekeeper, and who now prepared, 
at the sharp word “Down!” (uttered as if to a dog) to 
climb out of the trap and begin her duties. Robert half 
lifted her out. She was very small, shorter than Gillian 
and much thinner, for though Gillian was lissom, she was 
plump. 

She looked at Robert as he lifted her down, and some 
indecipherable message went up from the great black eyes 
to the kind grey ones. Then she turned and went into the 
silent house. 

“This is Fringal,” said Elmer, with another sideways 
nod. 


At the Sign of the Maiden 125 

Fringal from the back of the trap, where he appeared 
to be clinging like a monkey, looked up from the boxes 
and hampers he was unearthing, and nodded slightly, with 
the spryness of a wagtail. He was rosy, shrivelled, gay 
and toothless, but the gaiety never went beyond a certain 
limit. He was like a park where the wanderer is con¬ 
tinually met by signposts saying: “No Road ” and “Tres¬ 
passers will be Prosecuted” so that he soon learns that the 
park he is free to explore is very small. 

“He’s the old man of the mountains,” said Elmer. 

“Welsh?” queried Robert of Fringal. 

Fringal doubled up with laughter, quite silently. 

“No. He isn’t Welsh,” said Elmer. “I don’t know 
what he is. He laughs if you call him Welsh. Rwth’s 
Welsh. She makes him laugh.” 

Robert silently thought that Fringal was more laughable 
than Rwth, who was fitter for tears than mirth. But he 
did not find either Elmer, unloading his most cherished 
possessions before his new house, nor Rwth, nor even 
Fringal amusing. To think of the three of them shut up 
in the dreary house for the night positively made his flesh 
creep. 

“Is there any crockery there?” he asked. “Tea-things 
and that?” 

“Whatever for?” 

“I’ll make her a cup o’ tea,” said Robert, with the slight 
surliness he could not keep out of his voice when speaking 
to Elmer. 

“Let her make you one, more like,” replied Elmer. 
“She’s working housekeeper.” 

“No danger!” - 

Robert’s irony was lost on Elmer, who was unloading 
boxes for Fringal to carry indoors. 

Robert went in. 

She was kneeling before the largest box, fiercely yet 
controlledly wrestling with the strong cord. She had taken 
oflf her cloak, which Mrs. Makepeace would certainly have 


126 Seven for a Secret 

called Welsh-gotherum, and her thin shoulders stood out 
beneath her colourless print gown. 

“Here!” said Robert, “loose me do it for yer. Yer 
arms are no but sticks, child.” 

She relinquished the cord, gazing at his hands, master¬ 
fully at work. She knelt back, her coarse small hands 
clasped, her anomalous hat dripping water on to her shoul¬ 
ders, and slowly lifted her eyes from his hands to his face. 
He had opened the box. 

“Well! Here bin the very thing I was alooking for— 
now we’m got a bit o’ crockery we’ve come whome proper, 
lass!” Robert spoke lightly to hide the almost unbearable 
desire to weep that this creature brought. He had never 
felt like that before—never so much like that. The 
dreadful grip of Pity, more clinging, more lasting than 
the grip of Terror; the immense, wild pity that drove 
Christ to Calvary and has driven men mad, was upon 
Robert Rideout as it had not been ever in fold nor lamb¬ 
ing shed. He had felt it there. He had felt it through 
all the dark, bitter things that are beneath the pleasant life 
of farms as they are beneath the pleasant life of the world. 
But he had not seen anything like this woman before. She 
had, as it were, rolled up into herself the endless, silent 
agony of dumb creatures. Their dumbness, too, was hers. 
Only she could reason. As Robert said to himself: “She 
can put two and two together. She knows things. She 
inna kimet. There be the trouble.” 

And as he unpacked cups and saucers, he muttered: 

“Not enow of words, it’s jeath, that is, a burning sorrow 
and not enow o’ words.” 

All the while these dark, lustrous eyes were upon him. 

“Where be kettle?” he enquired. “Fetch un, oot, 
child?” 

She obediently rose and went out into the rain to fetch 
the kettle from the trap. 

“Now, take your hat off, for it’s like nought but a bit 


At the Sign of the Maiden 127 

of clogged troughing,” said Robert, “and then you go and 
put these cups under pump, oot, to get straw off ’em.” 

Impassively she did all he told her. Her obedience 
seemed to him to be like the obedience of a well-beaten 
dog. His attempt at jollity rather failed before it. 

“Theer!” he said, “now we’ll lay tea, and you can 
sit there by the table and pour out for us.” 

She sat down in the place indicated. Her heavy, stolid, 
rather dazed expression did not alter. She did not attempt 
to warm her blue hands at the fire. He noticed that her 
teeth were chattering. Yet she sat, erect and constrained, 
exactly where he had said. It was unbearable. There was 
a smarting at the back of his eyes. He was not used to pain 
like this. In his mother’s cheerful house pity could not 
clutch you, though she might have drawn near without. 
But here! Here the water washed the windows, and twi¬ 
light brooded through these morning hours, and the sad 
grasses sighed outside the door, and out of the dusk be¬ 
yond the fire there looked upon him from the eyes of a 
woman the soul of the creation that groaneth and travaileth 
in pain—the soul of the crucified. 

He got up, knocking over the box he was sitting on, and 
went to her. 

“Hark ye!” he said. “Dunna do what I tell ye, nor 
go where I tell ye, for the dear Lord’s sake! Dunna 
shiver when I come anigh you! Why, you’re starved wi’ 
cold—and I dunna wonder with them does. Here, lemme 
rub your ’ands.” 

He rubbed them so hard that it must have hurt her. 
Gillian would have cried out. Not so this creature. She 
watched wonderingly as his large hands went quickly up 
and down hers, and when he had finished and stood up 
asking, “Thawed a bit?” she lifted her eyes to his with 
a new expression in them. He knew the expression. It 
was trust, faith. It was more than he guessed—for it was 
the beginning of adoration. As he stood there, anxious, 


128 


Seven for a Secret 


benevolent and harrowed, with those dwelling eyes upon 
his face, he noticed a change beginning at the corners of 
her mouth. And suddenly, timidly, radiantly, she smiled. 

He turned to the door. 

“Whenever be you coming for your tea?” he asked with 
some irritation. “It’s cooling while you wait.” 

“Coming—coming-” called Ralph from the barn, 

whence came expostulatory cacklings of released poultry, 
and whence came also Fringal, in a silent paroxysm of 
laughter. 

Elmer came in. 

“Well, Rideout, you’ve made it into a reg’lar home, 
sweet home,” he observed. “Whiskey?” 

“No. Give it her.” 

“She dunna drink whiskey. Workus brats! Lord, 
where’d the country be? Taxes!” 

Fringal was convulsed at these economics. 

“Give it her,” commanded Robert, and he reached his 
hand for the bottle. 

Elmer withheld it. 

“Well, if you wunna, you wunna,” said Robert. “All 
the better for me. It’s whome for Bob Rideout and his 
own work by his lonesome for Mr. Elmer.” 

Elmer stared a moment; laughed; realised that Robert 
meant it, and relinquished the bottle. 

Robert poured some out, added hot water and gave it 
to Rwth. 

“Don’t you drink it!” commanded Elmer. “I want it, 
and Fringal here wants it, and it’ll scald your innards.” 

“Oh, my dear sores!” exclaimed Fringal, his face 
seamed with mirth, “it’s very temptuous! I could fancy 
a taste indeed, for it’s soggin’ wet.” 

“Give it Fringal!” said Elmer. “If you get fond of 
the bottle, my girl, who’s to tend the bar?” 

“Drink it,” said Robert composedly. 

She drank it, coughing, and Fringal was again convulsed. 
Then she gave the cup back to Robert, and once more she 



At the Sign of the Maiden 129 

smiled. Elmer’s mouth was a thin, hard line. Robert 
handed him back the bottle. 

“Theer!” he said. “Pity’s served, so you can take the 
rest.” 

“Much obliged, I’m sure, for my own whiskey.” 

“Your own?” queried Robert. “What’s your own? I 
mislike the sound of it.” 

“That’s because you’ve got naught of your own,” said 
Elmer. “What’s my own, you say? Why, this inn and 
those waggons coming along, and this whiskey and the 
sheep in the meadow-” 

“And this girl?” 

“Why, yes—whose else’s is she?” 

“Anybody ’ud a’most think,” said Robert slowly, with 
his eyes steady on Elmer, as you was married to her.” 

Elmer’s eyes narrowed, as if to hide their expression, and 
suddenly Fringal’s jaw dropped slightly. 

The black eyes in the dusk of the corner seemed to hold 
the three men as in a mirror. 

Then Elmer laughed uproariously. 

“What, married to that?” he cried. “To that Moll- 
Mawkin?” 

But all day as they worked, Robert saw those narrowed 
eyes and the stubbly dropped jaw of Fringal, and heard 
the silence lapping about them in those moments of ten¬ 
sion. 

“Mr. Elmer! Mr. Elmer!” cried a hoarse, lost voice 
from the storm, “be this Mr. Elmer’s at the sign o’ the 
‘Mermaid’?” 

A heavy rumbling drew near; stopped; seemed as if it 
had never been. It was as if the wheels had come to the 
inn at the world’s end and would never need to go any 
further. Two waggoners, clad in mud-spattered cordu¬ 
roys with sacks over all, stood at the door. 

“Well, you’ve lugged it out at last then,” said Elmer, 
“heavy going, ain’t it?” 

“Ah! heavy going and heavy weather.” 



130 


Seven for a Secret 


The waggoners looked mistrustfully at the black- 
windowed house, so eerie and lone on the savage moor. 

“Bin a death here?” asked one. 

“Well, yes.” 

“I thought as much.” 

“Any place ’ud look poor-favoured in this weather,” 
said Elmer. “And there’s no inn but knows death one 
time or another.” 

“Ah! I dur’ say. But we mun be shifting things. We 
mun be getting along.” 

They intended to be far away before nightfall. The 
place began to look kinder when some of Elmer’s furni¬ 
ture was in. It was commonplace, but good, and it seemed 
sufficiently self-complacent to stare down a ghost. 

“Mr. Elmer! Mr. Elmer!” came a second lost voice, 
and two more waggoners, also clad in sacks and corduroys, 
appeared. 

The seven men, with shuffling and deep breathing, car¬ 
ried in the heavy things, and Rwth unpacked boxes and 
swept up the mud and straw. The horses, with tarpaulin 
over their steaming flanks, munched hay, standing in the 
downpour of water as if they were really the dark en¬ 
chanted steeds of naiads in the land under the lily roots. 

The sign of the Mermaid swung and creaked in the 
rising wind. Smoke bellied from the chimneys. The 
house took on an air of habitation. But Robert, looking 
at it with disfavour, remembered a song of Gruffydd’s 
about an inn at the world’s end. 

“Ah! that’s it,” he thought. “The inn at the world’s 
end. That’s what it’s like. I never seed it till now.” 

As he drove in the staples that were to uphold the pol¬ 
ished cupboard in the parlour, he felt somehow as if he 
were driving nails into a coffin. 

And out of the tumult of rain and rising wind, came a 
third lost voice: “Landlord! Landlord! Be this the inn 
o’ the Naked Maiden?” 

It was a gipsy runner, lean, breathless, drenched. 


At the Sign of the Maiden 131 

“I mun speak with Robert Rideout,” he said. 

Robert came to the door. 

“Darst ye come out in the rain?” said the runner. “I 
munna mouth it afore folk.” 

Robert led the way to the barn. 

“I’m from Johnson,” said the man. “I’m to tell you 
Gentle’s dead, and Emily’s mad, and Gillian’s off to 
Lon’on, and you’re to come.” 

Robert felt that he was in no danger of stagnation. 

“To-night?” he said. 

“No. Johnson ’e says to-morrowday. Her’s wrote to 
her dad for money. It’ll come to-morrow. To-morrow’s 
the funeral. Whilst they’re at the funeral her’ll take the 
express.” 

“What time’s the funeral?” 

“Noon.” 

“Tell Johnson I’ll be at his caravan at sun-up to-morrow. 
And now take bite and sup, and I’ll stand the reckoning.” 

They went in. And stranger than ever now seemed the 
kitchen, with its long shadows, its barrel of beer by the 
fire, the rugged waggoners, the lean gipsy, Elmer, the old 
man of the mountains, himself, and the silent, tragic figure 
serving them. 


chapter xiii : Robert Says “No” 


laws me, Bob, thee’s as damp as a fish,” said 

V-r Jonathan, when Robert came in, “you mind me of 
the old rhyme.” 

“What was that, my dear?” said Mrs. Makepeace 
cheerfully, though she knew quite well. 

“ ‘Soggin’ wet: 

Where yo bin?* 

‘I’ve bin a-souling 

In the Lost Land o’ Lleyn.’ 

You mun know as the Land o’ Lleyn was covered by the 
tide amany years ago, though you can hear the bells 
a-ringing. So them as goes theer singing for soul-cakes, 
if any such there be, canna look to be dry.” 

“Oh, well, I reckon I’ve been there then,” said Robert. 

“You’d best change, lad,” said his mother. 

“Ah.” He turned at the stair foot. “And I’d be glad 
of a bite and sup, Mother, for I’m taking the day off to¬ 
morrow, and I’m starting to-night. I’m off to the Keep 
after supper.” 

“Lord love ye! dog’s leave agen,” said Tonathan. 
“What a lad!” 

“There, my dear, you leave un be,” said Mrs. Make¬ 
peace. “He’s werritting about summat. I wonder what 
ails un?” 

“It’s young blood and the pride o’ life ails un, I know. 
I was like it myself onst,” said Jonathan daringly. 

“Ah, I’m sure you were, my dear,” soothed his wife. 
“And mind what you’re doing with that knife, or you’ll 
cut yourself.” 

She would have liked to blunt all knives, razors, brum- 
132 


Robert Says “No” 133 

mocks and brushing hooks before letting Jonathan touch 
them. 

She bustled about, getting something hot for Robert, 
drawing beer, blacking his best boots. “Though dear 
knows, they’ll be all of a muck in three strides,” she said. 
“But I’ll know as he started clean.” 

Robert came down in his Sunday clothes, Jonathan 
chuckled. 

“It’s a runaway match, that’s what he’s a-playing truant 
for—a runaway match,” said he. “Did ye ever hear tell 
o’ Lord Meldrum of the Gorsty Bank? Now there’s a 
tale! Lord Meldrum fell in love with Squire Lineacre’s 
wife, and she with him, but not with all of her mind, 
seemingly. Well, Lord Meldrum’s fetched the longest 
ladder—the harvesting ladder from under the rick—and 
he’s up at Mistress Lineacre’s windy, while the Squire was 
sleeping off a Wake Day supper. So Mistress Lineacre 
looks at the Squire, and the Squire was red and breathing 
heavy. And she looks at Meldrum. Meldrum ’ud got his 
best plush coat on—and he was a Lord into the bargain. 
So she slips on her hood, and away. But they hadna gone 
a mile afore she turns her ankle—her shoes being her pride 
and that small as never was, but very treacherous—so they 
was forced to wait at the nighest inn while Lord Meldrum 
sent a lad to the place where his coach was waiting. And 
it happened as the lad met a poacher by Squire Lineacre’s 
brook. And he ups and tells him what’s the news. And 
the poacher thinks to himself, ‘Seven good trout, two brace 
of pheasants, and a tidy few mixed game I’ve got off 
Squire Lineacre this night. And, dear to goodness! Line- 
acre shall have his missus back.’ So off he goes to Squire’s, 
and drums him up and tells him, and Squire’s away-to-go 
in a minute on his hunter. And just as Meldrum’s coach 
drives up in a lather, Squire comes pounding up in a lather 
as well. Says Meldrum: ‘Pursued, by God!’ The lady 
stops with one foot on the coach step, and she looks at ’em 
both. ‘Come, love of my life,’ says Meldrum, ‘I’ll gie 


134 


Seven for a Secret 


you the world to walk on!’ £ Meg,’ says the Squire, ‘I 
canna fancy my porridge unless you cook it.’ And with 
that Mistress Lineacre gives a sob and runs to the Squire, 
and he swings her up and off whome agen.” 

“She was a good ooman,” said Mrs. Makepeace. “Not 
but what she was a brazen piece to encourage the man! 
But she did right at last, and the Lord ’ud reward her.” 

“I canna say as He did, for it was but two month after 
as Squire Lineacre ran away with the Vicar’s daughter, and 
by then Lord Meldrum was away to the war—so she hadna 
neither on ’em.” 

“Maybe,” said Mrs. Makepeace dryly, “maybe that was 
the reward.” 

“To my seeing,” remarked Robert, “they were a parcel 
of fools.” 

“And why so?” inquired Jonathan. 

“ ‘Ifting’ and ‘anding’ all the while, and too highful 
to hunger after ought, with yer leave and by yer leave, in 
and out like hares through a muse.” 

“Well, my dear,” said his mother, “and what ’ud you 
ha’ done?” 

Robert laughed. 

“It dunna matter what cowman-shepherd does, Mother.” 

“Well, but what d’you think they ought to ha’ done?” 

“Let ’em each give the lady a good smacking kiss, arms 
round and no time to think of plush coats and lords. And 
the one she misliked the kiss of, let that one give her up.” 

“What? If she was his married wife?” 

Jonathan’s face was a study in amazement. 

“My dear!” cried his wife, “look where you’re going 
with that knife!” 

“If she didna like the feller’s kiss she wouldna be his 
married wife,” said Robert, “or maybe she’d a liked to be 
kissed by the one, and make porridge for tother, and I say 
*—let ’er. And now I’m going to Maister to ask off.” 

“Laws! The lad’s peartening up cruel,” said Jonathan. 


Robert Says “No” 135 

And dreamily, as she shook out the supper cloth on the 
cobbles, Mrs. Makepeace said to herself, “He’s getting the 
very moral of his dad.” 

The moral of his dad, meanwhile, felt rather sheepish 
as he took his cap off and walked into Isaiah’s parlour. 

“I’m after another day off, please, sir,” said Robert. 

“Another! 1 ” 

“Ah!” 

“Musicianing agen?” 

“No, sir.” 

“What then?” 

“A bit of business of my own.” 

“Oh!” 

Isaiah observed him. 

“Not going to get wed?” 

“Not yet,” said Robert composedly, adding in the secrecy 
of his own heart, “not till I wed your daughter, Mr. 
Lovekin.” 

“And what if I say no?” 

“Dog’s leave,” observed Robert. 

“And if I give you warning for it?” 

“If you mun you mun. I reckon I can drive plough 
for others same as I’ve druv it for you.” 

“But go you will to-morrow?” 

“Ah.” 

And suddenly the irony of the situation came over 
Robert and made him laugh. Here was he, going to save 
Lovekin’s daughter from what Lovekin would consider 
worse than death (“for she’ll be on the streets in a week 
if she goes off to Lun’on the like o’ that, poor little inno¬ 
cent,” he thought) and Isaiah threatened him with “warn¬ 
ing!” And he could not say anything: firstly, because if 
Isaiah knew that his daughter had planned to deceive him 
he would never forgive her; secondly, because Robert 
could not very well disclose his system of receiving private 
information. 


136 


Seven for a Secret 


“What be you laughing at? Me?” enquired Isaiah. 

“Laws, no, sir!” 

“The randy you’re set on?” 

“Ah, that’s it,” said Robert, rather grimly, knowing very 
well the dreadful “mouth-mauling” Gillian would give 
him, “it’s the randy as I’m thinking on.” 

“Well, go if you must,” said Isaiah, “you’re as bad as 
you were when you were a lad—always neesening. And 
you might give the mare a hot mash. She’s out of condi¬ 
tion. Looks unkind.” 

“Right, sir, and thank you.” 

Robert saw to the mare himself, though doing so robbed 
him of time he really needed. And as he tramped towards 
the Keep, and thence to the Junction (of happy memory) 
to catch the midnight train for Silverton, he began to feel 
that he was having rather a busy day. And seeing that 
he had received from Providence (and would, he judged, 
receive) more clouts than apples, he made it up to himself 
by thinking of a little song. But he did not sing it. Some¬ 
how he did not want even the moonstruck rabbits that 
loped across the road, or the weightless blur that was a 
questing owl, to hear this song. No one would ever hear 
it, not even Gillian. Least of all Gillian. Then why 
make it? 

“But if you begin to ask why, my lad,” he adjured 
himself, “you’ll be stepping out on the road of never- 
end.” 

But as he went splashing along the half-flooded road¬ 
ways, with the waterdrops raining on him from every tree, 
and an occasional scud of rain hiding the moon, he said 
his little song over to himself. 

I amna going neesening! 

There’s only one nest 

As I’d lief rob, 

And that’s where Gillian do rest 

With a head like a brown fir-bob. 


137 


Robert Says “No” 

I amna going to rob the skeps! 

There’s no comb worth my money, 

Not even a fardin, 

Only the white virgin-’oney 
From Gillian’s gyarden. 

Reaching Silverton between twelve and one, Robert lay 
down on a bench on the platform and went to sleep. At 
dawn, after a cup of coffee at a coffee-stall, he set out for 
Johnson’s. 

Johnson sat on the steps with the inevitable pipe. 

“However did you hear tell of it all so quick?” asked 
Robert. 

“What I dunna know about this owd town inna worth 
knowing,” said Johnson. 

“But this was inside the house, like.” 

“There’s the day-girl,” said Johnson. “There’s blotting 
paper. There’s train guides. There’s luggage. And she’s 
bin at station.” 

“She met think of coming whome.” 

“She says she’s going ’ome. But it wunna the Junction 
she asked for.” 

“What time?” asked Robert. 

“Twenty minutes past noon, it leaves, just while the 
funeral’s on. A clever piece, she is, but not clever enough 
for Johnson.” 

“I’m much obleeged.” 

“You’re welcome. Rideout. I reckon we’m lastin’ 
friends.” 

“I reckon we are.” 

Nine o’clock by the gold and silver chimes. 

Ten o’clock. 

Eleven o’clock. 

And all the half-hours and the quarter-hours between! 

Never had time seemed so long to Robert. 

Twelve o’clock! 


138 


Seven for a Secret 


He was on the London departure platform, just by the 
stairs, where she could not escape him. 

From the far end, in a bay, the one o’clock train for the 
Junction would steam out. It was just coming in now. 

T wel ve-ten! T wel ve-fi f teen! 

Gillian! 

“Oh, laws, she’s prettier than ever was!” sighed Robert. 

He waited. His plan was to bide his time until just be¬ 
fore the train started. 

Twelve-twenty. 

“Now or never,” muttered Robert. 

She had put her bag in, and was buying a bun. 

“Gillian!” said Robert, “I’m acome to take you whome, 
lass.” 

Gillian’s face was quite white with consternation. She 
was trembling from the sudden onslaught of Robert’s will. 
She could see from his face that it was to be a fight to the 
finish. 

“I’m going on a visit elsewhere,” she said defiantly. 

“No!” 

Gillian stamped, and put one foot on the step. Robert’s 
right hand was heavy on her shoulder. With the other he 
reached her bag. 

“Will you come down the platform quiet to the Junc¬ 
tion train?” he said. 

“Never—never—never will I!” cried Gillian, bursting 
into tears. 

The porters were shutting the doors. The guard was 
ready with his flag. 

Without more ado, Robert picked her up. 

“My missus is feeling fainty,” he explained to the won¬ 
dering porters. “She mun bide till the next. She’s granny- 
reared, lukka! and a bit nesh.” And the cowman-shepherd 
walked quietly down the long platform with his master’s 
daughter and his master’s daughter’s bag in his arms; de¬ 
posited them in the waiting Junction train; got in; shut 
the door; mopped his face, and prepared for the worst. 


chapter xiv: “Daggly” Weather 

T HERE was a long, bitter, tearful silence. At last 
the few passengers strayed down the platform, por¬ 
ters appeared, and Robert, who wished to have an imme¬ 
diate and complete explanation, leant out and whispered to 
one of them. 

“Dunna let anybody in.” 

The porter peered at Gillian and looked suspicious. 
Robert gave him a shilling, and breathed the word: 
“ ’Oneymoon.” 

But not all the porters of Silverton could prevent the 
old lady with the two market baskets from coming in. 
The more Robert tried to keep her out, the more deter¬ 
mined she was. It was useless for the porters to tell her 
in persuasive accents that there were carriages of extreme 
comfort further on. One porter, who had recently re¬ 
turned from his own honeymoon, even went so far as to 
hint that she might travel first. 

None the less, she pushed Robert aside and climbed in. 
Once in, she perceived that something was wrong. 

She offered Gillian a lozenge, that being the only sweet 
she had about her. Gillian, thinking of all the things she 
might so soon have been enjoying, refused it and cried 
more than ever. The old lady frowned at Robert. 

Then she went and sat by Gillian. 

“Now, my dear,” she said, laying a large hand in a 
yellow worsted glove on Gillian’s slatey dress, “you mun 
mind as it’s what we all have to go through.” 

Gillian’s scarlet cheeks took a deeper shade. Robert 
desperately said: 

“Very daggly weather, missus.” 

“Daggly is it?” said the old lady ferociously. 

139 


“I take 


140 


Seven for a Secret 


no count of what it is. But I know it’s bad to leave your 
whome, and your father and mother and all that you have, 
and cleave to your ’usband.” 

Now it was Robert’s turn to blush. 

“And you mustn’t be impatient and hurryful, young 
man, I say. You mun ’umour her. You’ve just said them 
blessed words: ‘Love, honour and cherish!’ remember 
that!” 

Robert, in scarlet wrath, yet wished with all his heart 
that he had. 

“And you, my dear,” continued the zealot, “you’ve just 
said: ‘Love, honour and obey.’ And obey him you must.” 

“I never, never will!” said Gillian. “He’s treated me 
shameful.” 

“I thought as much.” 

“He carried me down platform, and he wouldna leave 
me go to London—I hate un!” 

“Dear, dear, dear!” said the old lady, very much per¬ 
turbed. “What a union!” 

“Hark ye!” said Robert. “If you dunna hush I’ll throw 
you out of window.” 

It was now the old lady’s turn to be taken aback. She 
looked at Robert with her spectacles, and without them. 
Slowly, dreadfully, she came to the conclusion that they 
were both mad, and as the train opportunely drew up at 
a station she hastily got out. 

“Now,” said Robert, “you mun explain it all, Gillian.” 

“I’d thank you to call me Miss Lovekin from this 
day on.” 

“Miss Lovekin! What for did you think of doing such 
a soft thing?” 

“I will do it yet.” 

“No.” 

“I’m free.” 

“You’re not free to get alost.” 

“You’re a spoil-sport and a tell-tale and a sneak.” 

“What’s this about Mr. Gentle?” 


141 


“Daggly” Weather 

*‘I hate Mr. Gentle.” 

“Sh! He’s dead, Gillian.” 

“Miss Lovekin!” 

“Miss Lovekin.” 

“Could I help it if his lungs was bad? Could I?” 

“No, I dunna see as you could.” 

a They say’s I ’ticed him to death. Aunt Fanteague 
called me—called me—called me-” 

“Well, what did she call you?” 

“A murderess!” 

“Poor little thing.” 

Robert patted her shoulder. 

“Dunna touch me, Mr. Rideout!” 

“And then?” asked Robert. 

“Then Aunt Emily went mad.” 

“Mercy me!” 

“She screamed and screamed. She said she was a 
widow, and she’s bought the weeds.” 

Gillian gave a hysterical giggle. 

“And she said she’d kill me.” 

“Lord love us!” 

“So Aunt Fanteague says: ‘Go home,’ and you wrote 
and says: ‘It’s very quiet,’ and I made out to go to 
London.” 

“I see.” 

“And I canna hear nought but Mr. Gentle’s voice 
a-singing ‘Queen of the Earth,’ and I canna see nought 
but the bald spot on his yead when he bowed Good-evening. 
And it inna fair. It wunna my fault. I only wanted a. 
bit of fun. Say it wunna my fault, Robert! Say it!” 

“I shall be obliged to think it over a bit afore I says 
that,” answered Robert. “Did you tell your dad you were 
coming whome?” 

“Yes.” 

“How’d he ha’ felt when you didna come and was 
alost?” 

“I dunna know. I dunna care. He wouldna mind.” 


142 


Seven for a Secret 


“He ’ould mind, Gillian.” 

“Miss Lovekin!” 

“Maybe Miss Lovekin to-morrow, but Gillian now. 
And did you tell Mrs. Fanteague you were coming back 
to the Gwlfas?” 

“Yes.” 

“How’d she ha’ felt when you went out of her house 
into silence and never heard tell of agen?” 

“She wouldna care. She called me murderess.” 

“You’ve told two lies, Gillian. You’ve rode rough-shod 
over a sight of people. Did Mr. Gentle take kindly to 
coming on the water?” 

“No.” 

“But you made un come?” 

“Made un?” 

“Now, Gillian! You and me knows how you goes on 
when you’re set on your own way. Tantrums! Worse’n 
a pig drove the wrong road from market.” 

“I wunna be called a pig!” 

“You’ll hearken to me.” 

She stopped her ears. 

He dragged her hands away. 

“Now, Gillian! If I liked I could go straight tcf 
Maister and tell un.” 

“But you wouldna!” 

“Not if you behave decent. So you made out to go to 
London by your lonesome?” 

“Ah.” 

“Well, you’ve got to give me your bounden word never 
to do it agen. Not wi’out telling your dad.” 

“Why?” 

“Because I say so. Promise or I tell your dad.” 

“I promise. I never could a-bear you!” 

“You mun write to your Aunt Emily, poor thing. 
[You’ve took her lover away. He met not be what you’d 
choose for a lover, but he was Miss Emily’s choice, and 
you’d no cause to draw un away.” 


143 


“Daggly” Weather 

“Aunt Emily’s old and ugly.” 

“She inna ugly. She met be a bit old. But he found 
no fault till you tempted un.” 

“I didna!” 

“Gillian, it’s no use for to deny it. I know your ways. 
Now you mun write a long letter—dust and ashes—to 
your Aunt Emily. And another to Mrs. Fanteague. And 
you mun make a cross for Mr. Gentle’s grave.” 

“What mun I make it with?” Gillian was still defiant, 
but curious. “There’s nought in blow.” 

“Blackthorn and gorst be in blow; you mun make it of 
blackthorn and gorst, and no gloves on, Gillian. And 
when the blood runs down your hands, you mun say: ‘I 
helped to kill Mr. Gentle the same as I killed the slatey 
drake—for my adorning.’ ” 

“But only a little wreath?” she pleaded. 

“No. A big un. I’ll make the groundwork for it, and 
you’ll cover it. And there’s a posy knot of snowdrops in 
our gyarden; you can put ’em in. Now that’s done with.” 

“It’ll never be done with, Robert Rideout! I’ll hate 
you to my dying day!” 

“Can you make shift to walk from the Keep?” 

“Ah, but I’d liefer walk alone.” 

“You shall have a sup of tea at the public and then 
we’ll start.” 

It was a very different tea from the one at the Junction, 
but Robert was glad of it, after yesterday, and last night, 
and to-day’s tension. 

“I’m ready for a drop of summat heartening,” he said. 
It was his only comment on his own feelings. 

Early in the afternoon they set out. 

When, at last, after an almost silent walk, they sighted 
the fire-lit windows of the “Mermaid’s Rest,” Gillian 
said: 

“The new folks be come then?” 

“Yes, dang it,” said Robert. 

“What’s the family?” 


144 


Seven for a Secret 


“Two men and a woman.” 

As they passed the open door, Elmer spied Robert, for 
the light had not yet faded, and from where he sat he 
could see the road. 

“Come in, oot?” he said. “The young lady as well.” 

“Not to-night, Elmer, thank you kindly,” replied Rob¬ 
ert, and walked on. 

Ralph laughed. 

“Two’s company! Good luck!” he shouted. 

“What’s that name?” asked Gillian. 

“Ralph Elmer.” 

“A tidy sounding name.” 

“Ugly, I call it,” said Robert. 

Why would everybody conspire to accuse him of his 
dearest, most impossible, dream? he wondered. 

His face looked older. He always seemed older than he 
was. For original thought, like running water, leaves its 
mark. 

They came to the meadows of Dysgwlfas, to the wicket 
of the farm. 

“Good night,” said Robert wistfully. “I’ll watch 
you in.” 

Gillian took her bag. 

“It’s good-bye forever, Robert Rideout,” said she. 

“Not yet! There’s the cross.” 

“Get the gorst an’ blackthorn for me, oot, Robert? 
You’ve got your hedging gloves, and there’s none nigher 
than the little gyland.” 

“No, you mun get it yourself.” 

“But I can’t abide the little gyland: you said yourself 
it was unket.” 

“It is unket. I dunna mind giving a hand with the 
gathering.” 

“To-morrow?” 

“Ah. And maybe you wunna hear Mr. Gentle singing 
‘Queen of the Earth’ so much when you’ve made it.” 


chapter xv: Isaiah Hears a Belownder 


G ILLIAN felt both relieved and bored as she realised 
that her father expected her—at least, that he ex¬ 
pected her soon, if not this evening. Instead of the wild 
dismay, the searchings and enquiries, the mystery that she 
had planned, here she was, home again as punctually, as 
unemotionally, as Mrs. Makepeace from market. Still, she 
would “best” Robert yet. She would coax and cajole her 
father. She would go out into the world by hook or by 
crook. 

Isaiah was doing accounts by the fire. 

“Well, Father!” 

“Well, I never! Why didna you tell me the train? 
Where’s luggage?” 

“I met Robert, and he carried it.” 

“Well, that was a bit o’ luck, for the mare’s not up to 
much. So you’re whome agen. How bin ’e, my dear?” 
“I’m a’right, Dad. Had tea?” 

“No. It’s only just on six.” 

“I’ll get it. I’m as hungry as a ratling.” 

“All well at Sil’erton?” 

“Not to say very well, Father.” 

“Oh?” 

“Aunt Fanteague’s well.” 

“Not poor Emily?” 

“Aunt Emily’s met trouble.” 

“Oh?” 

“Mr. Gentle’s dead.” 

“Ha! I thought as much. He’d no business to die. 
He’d ought to ha’ married the girl.” 

“Girl, Dad?” 

“Girl to me. She’s younger than me, you mind.” 

145 


146 


Seven for a Secret 


a Aunt Fanteague kept on about him having no business 
to die. First she’d say that. Then she’d say: ‘You’d no 
business to ’tice him on the water.’ It was fair like a 
cuckoo dinning.” 

“Did you ’tice ’un?” 

“Dad! I couldna bide in the house all day. And if a 
fellow says: ‘Come on Severn?’ what’s a girl to say?” 

“Very true.” 

Gillian suddenly set the tray on the table with a bang, 
and put her arms round her father’s neck. 

“I like you, Dad!” she said. 

“Oblecged, I’m sure.” 

“Dad!” 

“Well?” 

“Seeing I’ve been deceived in my visit to A’ntie, will 
you let me go and learn to sing?” 

“I don’t see as I very well can, just now.” 

“In a bit, then?” 

“Maybe in a bit. Did you hear tell of the new folks 
at the ‘Mermaid’s Rest’?” 

“Only just. What like are they?” 

“There’s a queer fellow called Fringal, as is the odd 
man. And there’s a housekeeper, a wild-looking, ill- 
favoured wench, and there’s Mr. Ralph Elmer.” 

“A housekeeper?” 

“Ah. Seeing there’s no missus, there’s bound to be a 
housekeeper, inna there?” 

“Ralph’s a nice name.” 

“I don’t mind Elmer, neither.” 

“What does he do, Father?” 

“Buys to sell agen, and breeds sheep, and now he’s doing 
a bit in the publican line.” 

“Seems a lively chap, Dad.” 

“Middling lively. There’s nought made of horseflesh 
as he canna ride.” 

“Inna there?” 

“Quite the gentleman. Makes Robert look very rough.” 


Isaiah Hears a Belownder 147 

“But Robert is rough, Dad.” 

“Ha!” 

“What?” 

“Nought. Ralph Elmer’s bin to dinner here.” 

“Maybe he’d like to come agen?” 

“Maybe he’d ’ould.” 

“It’s awful quiet, Dad.” 

“What? Tired of your native afore you’re properly 
back?” 

“Why not ask him next Sunday?” 

“I see nought in particular agen it.” 

“Will you send Jonathan with an invite?” 

“Maybe I will.” 

Gillian lost no time in seeing that the note was written. 
Then, after tea, she ran across the fold and the orchard 
to the cottage. 

“Why, Miss Gillian!” cried Mrs. Makepeace. “You 
be a stranger! Come your ways in.” 

But Gillian saw that Robert, in the corner of the settle 
by the fire, was already busy on the cross. 

“No, thank you, Mrs. Makepeace. I only came to ask 
Jonathan to take a letter to Mr. Elmer.” 

Robert looked up, then hastily looked down again. 

“Ralph Elmer’s a nice name, inna-d-it?” she observed 
to people in general, and was gone. 

Sadly, ruminatively, Mrs. Makepeace looked at the bent 
head of her son, and almost echoed the words of Jonathan: 

“Oh, what a silly, kimet lad!” 

Meanwhile, Gillian made a happy tour of the farm. 
For now that there was a prospect of a little excitement, 
she was very glad to be home. She was heartily sick of 
her aunt’s prim house; and the sweeping lines of moor, 
the cowhouse with its warm fragrance and sound of low, 
deep breathing, the rushing fowls that came at her feeding- 
call, the one hatch of early chickens—of the colour of 
rich sponge-cake—had a new delight for her. She found 
three snowdrops in the long border under the orchard 


Seven for a Secret 


148 

hedge—so white, so radiantly green, that she picked them 
and pinned them into her dress, defiantly, because she 
knew she ought to have kept them for Mr. Gentle’s cross. 

Quite early next morning she slipped out of the house 
and whistled for Robert with the long shrill whistle they 
both knew. 

“ ‘Oh, that we two were Maying!’” sang Gillian, as 
they swung out across the frosty fields; but she stopped 
suddenly as she remembered that it was one of Mr. 
Gentle’s songs. 

It must be confessed that Gillian shirked her thorn¬ 
gathering. 

“You can reach ever so far above what I can,” she 
said. And Robert gathered a great many branches, not 
because he was taken in, but because he hated to see Gil¬ 
lian’s hands pricked. Gillian set her anger aside for this 
morning, and became her old self. 

“It inna so unket here, with you, Robert,” she said. 
“Still on, I’m not going to give you more than a ‘good- 
morning’ and ‘good-evening,’ forever and ever, and you 
know why.” 

“I’d like to keep trouble off you alius, Gillian, and not 
only in the little gyland,” said Robert, hacking at a bough 
of blackthorn, so that Gillian did not see the blaze of 
love in his eyes. 

“I’m a child of sin,” she said lightly. “They turned 
.me out of my cradle; likely they’ll get me agen.” 

“I wunna let ’em, Gillian.” 

^There’s no charm to keep ’em off.” 

*“Ah! there is.” 

‘“Tell!” 

'“No. That is, maybe one day.” 

‘“When?” 

“When I’m a rich farmer and you’re hoeing turmits 
barefoot,” said Robert. 

“That’ll never be.” 

“There’s no mortal man can say what’ll be. When 


Isaiah Hears a Belownder 149 

I’m high and you’re low, I’ll tell you. And this very day 
there’s a bit of a charm for you.” 

“What?” 

“Making the cross. It’ll keep harm from you, Gillian.’* 

“It’ll only prick me.” 

“A prick to the body oftentimes ’ull heal the soul.” 

“Oh, look! There’s Jonathan gone to Ralph Elmer’s.” 

“Dang it!” 

“Why, ‘dang it’?” 

“I dunna like the fellow. There’s summat ill-favoured 
about the folks.” 

“He looked well-favoured enough.” 

“To look at? Ah! But you wait till you’ve been there* 
You wait till you’ve seen that poor wench.” 

“But he inna married?” 

“No,” replied Robert slowly, “no. He says he inna 
married.” 

“What’s amiss, then? She could leave if she’d a mind.” 

“All’s amiss. She’s a foundling. And she’s dumb!” 

“Dumb!” 

“Ah!” 

“Oh, I wouldna like to be dumb!” 

“Surelie you wouldna! You’re as good as a nest of 
seven-coloured linnets, Gillian.” 

“Canna she say ought—not at all?” 

“Nowt.” 

“Nor write?” 

“I didna ask. Maybe she can. That ’ud be summat.” 

“It must be so cruel Hard,” mused Gillian, “never to be 
able to answer back.” 

In his mirth over this, Robert forgot the woes of Rwth 
for a time. 

When they reached the farm again, Gillian said, “Help 
me with the cross!” 

“No; you mun do it by your lonesome. I’m going to 
lock you in calfskit.” 

“Robert Rideout! You darstna!” 


Seven for a Secret 


150 

“I’ll show you if I darst,” said Robert, and having 
gently pushed her in, he turned the key in the padlock. 

“Now I’ll bring you the frame and the wire and the 
snowdrops, and when you’ve used up all the thorn and all 
the gorst, I’ll let you out.” 

So it was that Isaiah, wanting a button sewn on to his 
coat, shouted for Gillian until Mrs. Makepeace said to 
Jonathan: “Hark at Maister bellowing! I’ll go and see 
what’s to do.” 

Mrs. Makepeace having sewn on the button, Isaiah 
wandered up to the attic to see if Gillian was there. It 
was a favourite haunt of hers in autumn and spring, when 
she would sit in the sunshine that streamed through the 
one window, in her mother’s old rocking-chair, munching 
a carefully chosen selection of Ribstone Pippins, Pear- 
mains, and Blenheim Oranges, while she read the dusty, 
mouse-gnawed, strangely illustrated romances of Aunt 
Emily’s girlhood. 

Once in the attic, Isaiah could not resist picking-over 
all the apples. Then he stood in the window and surveyed 
his garden, the road, the fields, the pale blur that was 
blackthorn blossom in the little gyland, the fair spring sky. 
His hedges were all in good order, the work well forward, 
the sheep prospering. Gillian was back, and was probably 
even now getting his tea. The sun was warm. He leant 
on the high window-sill, drowsy and contented. Suddenly 
he started. 

“What a belownder!” he said, and peered out to see 
what caused the thunder of hoofs, the rattling of stones. 

It was Ralph Elmer, galloping past the farm like a man 
possessed, stooping forward, slim and eager, flogging till 
the very limit of speed was reached. Watching him dis¬ 
appear down the road, Isaiah saw that he was riding bare- 
back. Suddenly the interpretation of the exhibition came 
to Isaiah. He was overcome with silent, delighted mirth. 

“What a caution! Well, I never did! Tuthree words 


Isaiah Hears a Belownder 151 

from me, and all that belownder! Showing off, that’s 
what he is. Laws! If he dunna break his neck ten times 
over, he’s the very son-in-law for me. To think as my 
few words—well, well! Seed fallen on good ground! 
That poor cob thinks he’s going to stable in hell this night! 
What a pity—what a pity! Gillian ought to ha’ been 
here. Fall in love! Well, if I’d ’abin able to ride the 
like of that, I wouldna have wasted two year wiling her 
mother to church. Well! the young devil can ride, what¬ 
soever else he canna do. I’ll take sixpence a head off them 
lambs for this bit of entertainment. If he does it often, 
I shouldn’t wonder if he gets everything a bargain. If 
he comes back the like of that, I’ll take another sixpence 
off. Danged if I won’t!” 

Elmer did come back, rather more recklessly than he 
had gone. Isaiah chuckled. 

“But most a pity, Gillian’s not seed it!” he mourned. 

None the less, Gillian had seen it. For hearing a great 
commotion, she peered through the calfskit window, which 
looked on the road, and she beheld Elmer, straight as a 
dart, red with fresh air, endowed by her eyes with the 
eternal youth of the heroes of romance, flash past her dark 
strawy prison. 

She heard the rumour of his return in time to get a 
longer look. And exactly what Ralph Elmer intended 
came to pass. She was dazzled, stormed, inebriated with 
his recklessness, his pride of life, the hard physical beauty 
of him. She fell into a dream about next Sunday. It was 
lucky that she had finished the cross, for her thoughts were 
at the “Mermaid’s Rest” till Robert came to release her. 

“Did you see?” she asked. 

“See what?” 

“Why, Ralph Elmer galloping down the lane like a 
cowboy from the west.” 

“Ah, I saw un. I didna think much of un.” 

“You couldn’t do it yourself.” 

“Couldna I?” 


152 


Seven for a Secret 


“Will the cross do now? I canna do it any better.” 

“Well, I think you’ve done pretty fair,” said Robert, 
his eyes on Gillian’s red scratched hands. An unbearable 
longing to kiss them made him abrupt. But when Gillian 
had gone, he gathered up some of the fallen flowers of 
thorn and gorse and put them in his pocket. And when 
Isaiah went round the orchard after tea, he suddenly heard 
beyond the thick bounding hedge, another belownder. He 
peered through a gap. 

“Well, blast me!” he muttered, checking a great roar 
of laughter. For there was Robert, on the unbroken three- 
year-old cart-horse, riding bareback as Elmer had ridden 
and galloping as if a fiend pursued him. 

“Well, he’s got as good a nerve as the other! What’s 
took the fellers? Spring! Well, well, we know it burns 
in the blood. I mind when I’d ’a done the same if I’d 
’a thought of it. Lukka! There ’e comes. Round agen! 
Lord, Lord! If he brings that colt down, I’ll make un 
pay. Every farthing I will. Round agen! If he works 
as hard as what he plays, I shall be a rich man in no time. 
I’d like to see the two of ’em at it. Well, well! I dunna 
say as Bob inna the best of the two. But it wouldna do 
for Gillian to know it.” 

He walked away stealthily that Robert might not know 
he had been watched. Later, in the stable, he came on 
Robert grooming the colt. 

“Looks warm!” he observed. “Sweating?” 

“A bit,” said Robert. 

“Dog in the field?” 

“Not as I know-to.” 

“Must ha’ galloped like mad to sweat so.” 

“They do, these spring evenings,” said Robert. 

“They do! ” assented his master. And as he went across 
the yard, he gave a great roar of laughter and repeated: 
“They do! They do!” 

So that Jonathan, at his tea, observed: “Maister’s merry.” 


Isaiah Hears a Belownder 153 

“Ah, I’ve not heard him laugh so lungeous this long 
while,” said his wife. 

“Minds me of the tale of Farmer Knighton and his 
brother,” said Jonathan. “Never laughed, Farmer Knighton 
didn’t. Not if it was ever so. So his brother bet him 
half the farm (they went shares, seesta!) as he’d make 
him laugh. So in case he lost the bet, and in case his 
brother died first, Farmer Knighton insured him for five 
hunderd pound. So young Knighton tried and tried to 
make his brother laugh. And one day he was foolin’ about 
on top of the hay waggon and he fell off and broke his 
back, poor fellow. And he died. And Knighton hadna 
laughed. So he got all the farm, and because his brother 
was dead he got the five hunderd as well. And when he 
come back from the funeral it come o’er him sudden, and 
he laughed. And out of the chimley corner, where young 
Knighton was used to sit, came his brother’s voice. ‘You 
laughed!’ he says. ‘You’ve lost!’ he says. ‘I claim the 
farm.’ And he haunted the farm from that day, and 
there was no prosperation in beast nor in meadow; and it 
went back into the moor, and Knighton died.” 

Robert came in while the story was in progress, and 
his mother looked concernedly at his damp face and hair. 

“You he hot!” she said as soon as Blossom was safely 
disposed of. “Whatever’s been after?” 

“The colt inna very easy to ketch, these days,” said 
Robert meekly. But his heart was not meek. It was in¬ 
solently gay. Let Elmer gallop past the farm as often as 
he pleased, Robert Rideout was ready to gallop also. He 
might not be able to make love to Gillian, as he knew with 
bitter rebellion that Elmer would, but anyway he could 
gallop. And when Gillian tried him past bearing, he could 
go away into the far meadow and ride the colt till he was 
too tired to feel anything. Also, he would begin to com¬ 
pose his long poem about Dysgwlfas—a poem in which 
Gillian did not appear until the very end—a poem of rock 


154 


Seven for a Secret 


and rugged vistas, of savage winds and wide spaces and 
dark weather—the expression of Robert’s philosophy as he 
had hammered it out under winter skies. Its unemotion¬ 
alism would comfort him. Brooding on it, he would 
attain some kind of detachment. And perhaps he would 
find out what it was that the moor wanted of him; why 
it gripped him so in snow-time; what prophecy lowered 
upon him so strangely in the little gyland—the unket place. 


chapter xvi: Ralph Elmer Comes to 
Dinner 

E LMER came next day to accept the invitation in per¬ 
son. Gillian was practising a new way of doing her 
hair, and a new song she had heard in Silverton. The 
afternoon sun was warm; the air was keen and gay; she 
leant from her window with a long plait held between her 
teeth while she tied a bit of bootlace round it to keep it 
firm. And looking up from her absorbing task, she saw 
Elmer sitting easily in the saddle with his hat pushed back 
and his left hand idle on the bridle reins, staring up at her 
window, at her pink blouse, her half-done hair, her blushes. 

“Miss Lovekin!” he called. “Come down, Miss 
Lovekin! ” 

Gillian withdrew. 

He laughed softly, keeping his eyes on the window. He 
could see her at the glass, hurriedly putting in pins. 

He whistled the tune she had been singing. 

“Lord! What a time to keep a fellow waiting!” he 
observed. Then, aware that Isaiah was at a sale and Mrs. 
Makepeace at market, he sang: 

“The lily’s white, 

The violet’s blue* 

The rose is sweet, 

And so are you.” 

“Oh, dear now! What a roaring!” giggled Gillian. 
Robert heard it from the cowhouse, and began to hate 
Ralph Elmer unreasonably. 

“Miss Lovekin! Are you coming down, or-?” 

“Or what, Mr. Elmer? You are Mr. Elmer, I sup¬ 
pose?” 


155 



156 


Seven for a Secret 


Gillian’s face looked out roguishly. 

“Or—shall I come and fetch you?” 

Gillian laughed uproariously. 

This was really amusing. 

“Oh, dear now, Mr. Elmer, you are a caution!” 

“Are you coming down?” said Elmer softly. 

Gillian decided to go down. She put on her best hat. 

“Well, Mr. Elmer, pleased to meet you, I’m sure,” said 
she, standing under the green archway by the wicket. “But 
why didna you come yesterday when you went by like a 
storm of thunder?” 

“Because, if I had, I couldn’t have come and talked to 
you to-day. So you saw me?” 

“Ah, I saw you.” 

“Where were you?” 

“In the calfskit.” 

“Do they put you there when you’re naughty?” 

This came so near the truth that Gillian was on her 
dignity in a moment. She was angry, not with Elmer but 
with Robert. 

“I’m not a chyild, Mr. Elmer.” 

“What are you, then?” 

“A grown-up lady.” 

Elmer laughed. 

“Shall I tell you what I think you are?” 

“I dunna mind if you do.” 

“A little devil.” 

“Oh, Mr. Elmer!” 

“She’s a lot prettier than her father said,” thought 
Elmer. “Bit o’ colour! I should say so! Waist! About 
eighteen inches, it looks. My two hands ud go round it.” 

He held his hands out. 

“Would they go round, Miss Lovekin?” he inquired 
slily. 

“Go round what, Mr. Elmer?” 

“I said, ‘Would they go round Miss Lovekin?’ ” 


Ralph Elmer Comes to Dinner 157 

Gillian did not know whether to laugh or to blush or 
to pretend she didn’t understand. 

She decided on all three. 

“Oh, dear now, Mr. Elmer. How can I guess your 
riddle-me-ree? ” 

“Shall I tell you the answer?” 

■“Oh, no! no!” 

“Shall I show you the answer?” 

“I’m agoing in, Mr. Elmer.” 

“And me?” 

“You’ve no call to come in, seeing father’s at Weeping 
Cross.” 

“And long may he bide. Is he going agen next week?” 

“He’s going to Mid-Lent Fair, Friday’s a week. He’s 
going to bring me a Simnel cake.” 

“Will you come to the Mermaid to tea and I’ll give 
you a Simnel cake as big as a wedding cake?” 

“Laws! Will you? Will the girl as canna say ought 
be there?” 

“Yes. She’s my housekeeper.” 

“Then I’ll come.” 

“You’ll come to see her, but you won’t come to see me.” 

“That’s the size of it.” 

“No,” said Elmer reflectively, holding out his two 
hands to form a ring, <( that y s the size of it.” 

“I’m going in.” 

“I’m coming to dinner, day after to-morrow.” 

“Shall you come galloping?” 

“If you like.” 

“You’ll break your neck one of these days.” 

“I don’t care. If you like to see me gallop, I’ll risk it.” 

“Father, he did laugh! Talking about the lungeous 
way you came down our lane, I thought he’d burst with 
laughing.” 

“Laugh and grow fat] I’ll make your father as fat 
as a pig, Miss Lovekin. I’ll give him something to laugh 
at every day of his life.” 


158 


Seven for a Secret 


“Miss Gillian!” 

Robert stood in the porch. 

“The milk’s cooling. Be you coming to sieve it and 
scald the pails, or mun I?” 

“I’ll come, Robert. Good-evening, Mr. Elmer.” 

“Good-evening, Miss Lovekin.” 

Elmer dug his heels into the cob and was away. 

“Goes like a flash of lightning, dunna he?” said Gil¬ 
lian, watching him race across the moor. 

“If I had the say, he’d go faster than a flash o’ light¬ 
ning and he wouldna come back!” said Robert, very 
sulkily. 

They sieved the milk in an aloof silence. 

Robert turned to the door. 

“I suppose you wunna think of coming neesening this 
year,” he observed. 

“I’m grown-up now, Robert.” 

“I know to three or four in the making. And I shouldna 
wonder if there’ll be a canbottlin’s in our gyarden a bit 
later on.” 

“Well—I met think about it—early in the morning 
sometime.” 

“And if I was you, Gillian—Miss Gillian—I’d give 
Ralph Elmer a ‘go-thy-ways’ oftener than I’d give him 
a welcome.” 

“Oh, you would?” 

“Ah. And I wouldna get made into a nay-word for a 
jill-flirt, if I was you.” 

“Oh, you would, would you, Robert? And suppose I 
give you a goose-apple? I must go in now. If I stay 
coddling about in the dairy with you, I’ll be called a jill- 
flirt. Good-evening, Mr. Rideout. Ketch of frost!” 

While Gillian laid tea for her father, she felt rather 
sorry for Robert. He had no money, no rambling inn, no 
sheep—nothing. He was just a landless man. And yet— 
would Mr. Elmer be such a good companion, such a faith¬ 
ful friend? Would she enjoy tea with him as much as she 


Ralph Elmer Comes to Dinner 159 

had enjoyed it at the Junction? Still, Ralph Elmer made 
her laugh. What with his jokes and his galloping, time 
fled faster with him than with Robert. Perhaps she mis¬ 
took Robert’s self-control for dulness. 

“IPs like as if all Mr. Elmer’s goods was in the window, 
father,” she said later. “With Robert you canna tell 
what’s in the shop; he keeps the window so sparse.” 

“Robert’s neither here nor there. Elmer’s a gentleman 
—very nigh.” 

“What makes a gentleman, father?” 

“Well, my dear, it isna hardly easy to say. But you 
can see. Look’s Elmer, look’s Robert. One’s got a good 
coat and a bankbook; the other hanna. Ha! That’s it. 
A good coat and a bankbook. That’s a gentleman.” 

“Then you’re one, father?” 

“Oh, I wouldn’t like to go so far as that. I’m only a 
poor lost and forgotten working-man.” 

Isaiah, with a great laugh, lit his pipe and subsided into 
the weekly county newspaper. 

On Sunday, Gillian got up very early, and would not 
let Mrs. Makepeace help with the dinner. Mrs. Make¬ 
peace was very glad not to help, for she knew who was the 
invited guest and that her dreams were probably to be 
destroyed by that guest. 

Gillian made a tart of bottled damsons, horseradish 
sauce, custard; there were the usual liberal vegetables and 
the usual mountain of beef. It was all cooked to a turn 
when Isaiah came back from church. He always drove 
across the moor to Sunday morning service. Soon after¬ 
wards, Elmer came cantering into the yard, turning his 
cob into a spare stable, and came in. 

As he watched Gillian bring in the various dishes, he 
began to be afraid he was going to fall in love with her. 
Few girls had ever attracted him as much. Femininity 
had very little power over him. Women mean much less to 
men than men do to women. Most men would be content 
to go through their day’s work and even their leisure with- 


160 


Seven for a Secret 


out any feminine influence whatever. They are sufficient 
to themselves. If woman did not invade their aloofness, 
they would still be perfectly happy. But woman does in¬ 
vade it. She is driven to attract, to invite, to entrance, by 
a deep instinct that is often at variance with her psychic 
self. Only very exceptional women can live contentedly 
outside the masculine atmosphere: but the man who cannot 
live the greater proportion of his life without woman is 
the exception. This is, of course, apart from lovej for 
real love between the sexes is an exceptional thing. So 
when Elmer thought of “falling in love” with Gillian, it 
was not real love he meant, but the curious unreal “false 
dawn” that is often mistaken for it. Yet even this he mis¬ 
trusted. He had seen it weaken men’s hands so that their 
purses slipped from their control. He had seen it diminish 
their flocks and herds, curtail their lands, make them a by¬ 
word. It would not do. He was getting on so well. He 
had his life mapped out. He had his household, well- 
chosen, inexpensive. He had his amusements, interests. 
And Gillian Lovekin was outside them all. She would 
disturb his nicely adjusted existence. She would cost a 
great deal. If he flirted with her, he would have to take 
her about. He would have to give her presents. If he 
fell in love with her, she would break into his thoughts 
and disturb his concentration on business. Instead of re¬ 
membering the precise shilling, penny, farthing at which 
some other bidder at a fair usually stopped, he would re¬ 
member Gillian’s smile. Instead of being punctual to the 
moment, as he was famed for being, he would be always 
rushing over to the farm, or meeting Gillian in lanes or 
lost dimples of the moor. It would not do. Yet here she 
was, bright as a geranium, eager, shy, attracting and repel¬ 
ling at once. No greater contrast could have been found 
to Rwth. 

When he thought of Rwth, he frowned. Then there 
was the old man—Lovekin. He would not tolerate a 
flirtation that did not end in marriage. If a young woman 


Ralph Elmer Comes to Dinner 161 

walked out with an “acquaintance,” she must very soon 
walk to church with him or be disgraced. No. It would 
not do. 

“Sauce, Mr. Elmer? I made it.” 

There she was in that lavender-blue dress that made her 
look so richly-coloured, blushing, laughing, leaning over 
him with her round breast, her soft shoulder, the scent of 
violets that she seemed to breathe. She had bought a bottle 
of violet scent in Silverton, but how was a man to think 
of that, when the only women he had known intimately 
had been his mother, who was an earnest Methodist and 
eschewed all the wiles of woman, and Rwth, to imagine 
whom with a bottle of scent was a thing to beggar reason. 
That was why he considered her such a suitable housekeeper 
for a man who wanted to get on. She had a woman’s 
usefulness without a woman’s wiles. 

“Oh! if you made it, Miss Lovekin, I should like 
buckets full,” said his voice. His eyes said, “I should like 
your lips better.” His reason said, “You’re a fool, my 
lad.” 

“No need for such an arglin’ over the girl’s name, 
Elmer,” said Isaiah. “You met as well call her Gillian 
as not.” 

“Gillian,” said Elmer. “Why, it’s like gillie-flowers!” 

“And so are you!” said his eyes to his hostess. 

“I like a gillie-flower,” said Isaiah, packing beef into 
his mouth and talking round it. “A good, dark, hand¬ 
some gillie-flower beats a rose.” 

“It’ll beat anything,” said Elmer, with his eyes fast in 
Gillian’s. 

Isaiah had not observed the allegory. He was busy with 
his dinner, and he relegated allegories to church and the 
Bible. 

“I seed a red one, rosy-red it was, at the show at Weep¬ 
ing Cross last year,” said Isaiah. 

“I’ve seen a red one, too,” said Elmer, staring very hard 
at Gillian’s scarlet cheeks. 


162 


Seven for a Secret 


“Where?” 

Elmer’s eyes said, “Here!” 

“I forget,” said his mouth. 

“You’re a fool, Ralph Elmer,” said his mind. 

“It was as soft as a good fleece,” said Isaiah. “Sauce, 
Gillian!” 

“The one I saw was as soft as a fleece, too,” said Elmer. 
“And it was rosy-red, and sweet, and enough to drive any¬ 
body mad. Sauce for me, too—Gillian.” 

“Why ‘drive anybody mad’?” inquired Isaiah. “Where’s 
the girl gone? What are ye grinning at?” 

“Drive you mad to grow it; it’s nigh on impossible to 
get ’em that colour,” said Elmer glibly. 

“She’s gone to fetch some more gravy, maybe,” said 
Isaiah. “I said, what were you grinning at?” 

“Only a tale of a barmaid I heard tell of. She’d got 
such a complexion as never was. It drove the fellers silly. 
So one day a chap I knew bet the rest as it wasn’t real. (Be¬ 
cause he knew it wasn’t. His sister’d found the rouge on 
her dressing-table, see?) So he puts his arm round her 
very loving and he dips his other hand in the beer and he 
draws it down her cheek, and all the colour came off and 
the fellows roared.” 

Isaiah laughed. 

“Serve the hussy right. Brassy, I call it, daubing her 
face with raddle the like o’ that!” 

“Oh, father, I think the feller was a beast,” said Gil¬ 
lian. “I’d have given him a clout on the ear.” 

Elmer laughed. 

“Should you give anybody a clout if he kissed you, 
Gillian?” 

Gillian went to fetch more potatoes. 

“Why, where’s the wench agen? What ails her? It’s 
everything by fits and gurds seemingly to-day.” 

“More potatoes, father? Mr. Elmer?” 

Gillian had regained her composure. But when Isaiah 
settled himself for his nap, Elmer suggested that he and 


Ralph Elmer Comes to Dinner 163 

Gillian should “look the farm,” and Gillian lost her com¬ 
posure and Ralph his cool-headed foresight, and the walk 
ended in a struggle and an attempted kiss behind the hay¬ 
stack, which was unwillingly observed by Robert as he 
brought the cows in. He clenched his hands and passed 
them with averted head. And all evening he could think 
of nothing but the intense rapture it would be to murder 
Ralph Elmer. 


chapter xvii : Tea for Four at the 
“Mermaid’s Rest” 

I T was on a green March evening that Gillian set out 
for her tea at the “Mermaid’s Rest.” Her father 
had started early in the morning. Mrs. Makepeace was 
doing a day’s washing at her own cottage; Robert had gone 
to fetch the cows in. Away went Gillian, with a posy 
of golden hazel catkins in her frock, and an anticipatory 
blush in her cheeks. Mr. Elmer did say such things! He 
was much more amusing than Robert. Of course Robert 
was a necessity, like bread; one could not contemplate the 
farm without Robert. But bread, she thought, was im¬ 
proved by a relish. Mr. Elmer was that relish, highly 
spiced, perhaps (Mrs. Fanteague would have said undoubt¬ 
edly) not very wholesome, but pleasant. The cornelian 
heart shone in the sun. The yellow catkins swung. A 
thrush sang loud and sweet from a brown-budded chestnut 
in the hedge of the far pasture. There was the inn. They 
had put a coat of whitewash on it, and it looked clean and 
romantic in the afternoon sun. Elmer’s sheep, with their 
black-faced lambs, contemplated her from the gate of his 
croft. She came to the door. It was bright with new 
paint. The windows were clean. Fringal had tidied the 
flower-bed. Gillian thought it was charming. She knocked. 
Would Mr. Elmer come? She wondered. But Elmer 
was awaiting her in the parlour; and as he was tired after 
galloping to Weeping Cross and back to attend an auction 
which usually took up the whole day, he had fallen into a 
doze. 

Fringal came to the door. He knew she had been in¬ 
vited, and he strongly disapproved. He had his reasons 
for this. He had not intended to come to the door at all, 
164 


Tea for Four at “Mermaid’s Rest” 165 

only Gillian was early, and he thought it might be a cus¬ 
tomer. 

He stood and looked at her with a face of goblin 
mockery. 

“Good evening,” said Gillian. 

“Evening,” replied Fringal, and doubled-up with silent 
mirth. 

“I’m Miss Lovekin.” 

“Oh! Miss Lovekin? Ah! I dunna just mind who 
you be.” 

“Yes, you do! I’m Farmer Lovekin’s daughter.” 

“Oh, Farmer Lovekin’s daughter. I thought maybe you 
was travelling in cottons and laces.” 

Gillian was furious. She stamped. 

“I’m asked to tea!” she said. 

“Beg pardin?” 

“I’ve had an invite to tea!” 

“I be getting very hard of hearing,” said Fringal. 

“You heard as well as well.” 

“What bell?” 

“I didna say ‘bell,’ I said—oh, ha’ done with your non¬ 
sense, you silly old man, and leave me come in!” 

“Magpies, magpies, oh! it’s like a nest of magpies in 
a tree, it is,” remarked Fringal, and he doubled up again. 

He stood crushed between the door-post and the door, 
which he held open only just wide enough for himself. 

“I tell you I’m Miss Juliana Lovekin, and I’ve had an 
invite to tea!” 

“Not from me.” 

“From you! No. From Mr. Elmer—your master.” 

“Mr. Elmer? Oh, theer’s amany bidden to this old 
public by Mr. Elmer,” said Fringal, suddenly losing his 
deafness. “Theer’s such a mort o’ young women bidden 
to this public as keeps me all my time finding glasses for 
’em.” 

“I don’t care who else comes. I’m coming in.” 

“Like tom-titmice to a bone they come,” mused Fringal. 


166 


Seven for a Secret 


“He bids ’em and then forgets ’em. He’s forgot you.” 

“You’re a wicked old man!” 

“He’s forgot you, and he’s gone to sleep.” 

“Wake him up, then. I’m going to have tea with him.” 

“ ’Ow can you take tea with Mr. Elmer when Mr. 
Elmer’s in bed? If that’s in your mind, you inna no better 
than what you should be.” 

He laughed again. 

Gillian realised defeat and resolved on finesse. She 
remembered the back door and the existence of Rwth. 

“Well, good-day to you,” she said, and walked away. 
But no sooner had Fringal shut the door than she ran 
round the house and into the back kitchen, where Rwth 
was mangling. Rwth turned her lustrous eyes upon the 
intruder, not in surprise but in reverie. She always gave 
the impression of being impervious to surprise, beyond tears, 
beyond pain. Her riven young face looked into Gillian’s 
across the mangle. Her spare figure, clad in her usual 
dust-coloured raiment, with a big sacking apron, her dishev¬ 
elled hair and arms wrinkled from the washtub, would 
have made her an arresting picture of loveless toil even 
if she could have spoken. But the fact that she could not 
speak invested her with tragedy. Even to Gillian’s un¬ 
sympathetic, superficial gaze this was obvious. She stood 
darkly against the whitewashed wall, with the sun smiting 
across her tired face, and her beautiful eyes dwelt on Gil¬ 
lian’s vivid colours. Gillian was in sunlight also. The 
sun seemed to caress her, though it had no caress for Rwth. 
With her angry flaming cheeks and eyes bright grey with 
rage, with her richly-tinted dress, her catkins and her red 
heart, she quite shone against the pale wall. Rwth’s eyes 
lingered on her, accepted her, loved her. Gillian’s eyes 
pitied, Rwth’s adored. 

She smiled. 

“Is Mr. Elmer in?” asked Gillian quickly, smiling also. 

Rwth nodded. And there was something in the nod 


Tea for Four at “Mermaid’s Rest” 167 


that said how sadly and heavily she was aware of Mr. 
Elmer’s presence. 

“The old man said he was in bed. Is he?” asked 
Gillian. 

Rwth shook her head. 

“Where then?” 

Rwth wiped her arms on her apron; came and took 
Gillian by the hand and led her along the passage, avoid¬ 
ing the kitchen where Fringal was, and brought her to the 
second door of the parlour. They stood before it, looking 
at its dark panels, like figures of day and night, or life and 
death. 

Then Rwth went up the three steps and lifted her hand 
to the latch. But before she opened the door she turned 
once more and looked down into Gillian’s eager, vivid 
face. There was interrogation in her look, and tolerance 
and tenderness, and was it pity? A fleeting expression, as 
of a vast motherly compassion, seemed to tenant the large 
eyes for a moment. It was almost as if she said, from 
a vantage height of many sorrows: 

“What do you want with this man? What is he to you, 
beautiful creature? Is it wise to go up those three dark 
steps in through that dark door? I could stop you. Even 
now I could catch you by the arm and drag you into the 
kitchen where Fringal is. I could save you, for an hour— 
a day. Save you from what? How do I know? Do you 
come to disturb my peace? Have I any peace to disturb? 
Will you become like me if you go in at that door? Will 
your face be granite and your shoulders bowed, and dumb¬ 
ness freeze your days? Maybe not, for I am here. I will 
be your saviour. I had no saviour.” 

Gillian trembled beneath her gaze. Why, she could not 
explain to herself or any one else all the days of her life. 
She could not explain that she had, standing at the foot 
of the parlour steps at the “Mermaid’s Rest,” suffered the 
impact of that dumb creation which groaneth and travaileth 


168 


Seven for a Secret 


in pain, that creation which, once to see, to hear, to realise, 
turns the hair of youth white, and numbs the heart; for 
this is Calvary. 

It was as if there lay across the face of Rwth the per¬ 
petual Shadow of the Cross. It was as if, losing oneself 
in her eyes, one saw the rocky, dripping caverns leading 
through the jagged flinty ways of agony down to death. 

She felt very small and helpless with those eyes upon 
her, frightened and yet consoled. 

Suddenly, as if at the beckoning of Destiny, Rwth laid 
her thumb on the latch, smiled, opened the door, stood 
aside for Gillian to enter, and went away. 

The room was comfortable and even gay. It reassured 
Gillian. There were red curtains. There was a glass- 
fronted corner cupboard full of bright china; two arm¬ 
chairs; a blue tablecloth; brasses on the mantelpiece; a 
dresser full of plates; pipes, and riding-whips and spurs; 
a hearthrug with a tabby cat on it, and in the largest arm¬ 
chair, fast asleep, the master of the house. 

Like a nymph gazing on the sleep of a satyr, Gillian 
looked at him; tiptoed nearer; put her head on one side 
and looked at him again. 

“He’s real well-favoured,” she thought. His hair, 
roughened by his ride and his sleep, suited him better than 
in its usual sleek condition. His relaxed brow, the eye¬ 
lashes on the cheek, the mouth less hard than it was in its 
firm waking lines, the flush, made of him a picture that his 
mother would have liked to see, sent him back to his boy¬ 
hood. His long nervous hands lay on the arms of the 
chair. His long legs were stretched towards the fire. Close 
beside his feet the cat, humped in content, purred. 

“The cat inna afeard of him. Why me?” thought Gil¬ 
lian. Now what should she do? Go out and come in 
again? But then that horrible old man might see her. 
Cough? He would be startled then, and cross. He sighed 
in his sleep. Sighed! This great, hard-riding, hard- 


Tea for Four at “Mermaid’s Rest” 169 

bargaining, hard-staring man sighed like an old, old 
woman or a little child. 

“Now what be troublin’ thee?” whispered Gillian, in 
the words of one of Robert’s rhymes. 

“Now what be troublin’ thee? 

Now what old ancient sorrow 
Stands up like a tree over yesterday 
And shadows to-morrow?” 

Why she thought of this rhyme, why this strange pity 
held her, Gillian could not have said. She was impervious 
to sympathy as a rule. She had no more pity for the world 
in general than the hungry young bird has for its over¬ 
driven parents. She stood close beside his chair. It was 
strange that he slept so soundly, she thought, and as a 
matter of fact, it was only because he had treated and been 
treated by so many friends at the “Drovers’ Rest” that he 
did. Gillian was tired of this silent host. What with him, 
and the dumb girl and the forbidding Fringal, she felt 
that the house was too welcomeless. Even the cat had 
purred itself into quiet. 

“Now I’ll end it!” whispered Gillian. With a silent 
laugh and a blush she stooped over and lightly brushed her 
bunch of catkins across his mouth. 

“Hey!” cried Elmer. “Hullo! What the devil? Who 
kissed me?” 

This sudden angry vitality in a person who had been 
so passive alarmed Gillian. She stood with clasped hands, 
very red, not finding a word to say. 

Elmer got up; yawned; stretched. 

“Bless me! I must ha’ been asleep!” he said. “How 
did you get in all on the quiet? How long since did you 

come? What was that-?” He stopped, staring down 

at his guest. “You did! It’s no manner use saying you 
didn’t!” 

“I never, never did, Mr. Elmer!” 



170 


Seven for a Secret 


“I swear you did. I felt it.” He laughed suddenly. 
“You can do it agen if you’ve a mind.” 

“Oh, ha’ done, Mr. Elmer. It wur only these lamb’s- 
tails. I just brushed ’em across.” 

“Did you unpin ’em?” 

“No. Whatever difference?” 

It made a good deal of difference to Elmer. 

So that soft, round breast had been near enough for its 
posy to brush his lips! 

And he asleep! A sudden intense wish not to have been 
asleep made him say, “Do it agen!” 

Gillian laughed. 

“No danger! You’re awake now.” 

He sat down, closed his eyes, snored. 

“Now, Gillian! You can’t have yer tea till you wake 
the master. Just once across! If you will I’ll bring you 
a piece of music next fair I go to.” 

She hesitated. He looked very harmless. 

She came nearer; stooped over him; the catkins just 
touched his mouth. 

“Oh!” cried Gillian. “Oh, dont’ee! Dont’ee!” 

For suddenly Elmer’s foresight, his business faculty, had 
gone to the winds. He had seldom so much wanted any¬ 
thing as he wanted to lay his head against the slatey frock. 
His arms went round her; his face was hard-pressed be¬ 
tween her breasts amid the catkins; she was breathless and 
terrified. 

“Oh, Mr. Elmer, the old man’s coming!” she cried; 
and she did hear his step somewhere along the stone pas¬ 
sage. 

“Yo mun loose me!” 

But the tense, the almost agonised grasp, did not relax. 
The pillow was so soft, the violet scent so sweet. He had 
given so little time to romance, and here was romance in 
essence. He took no notice of her pleading, which grew 
more imploring as the steps came nearer. He just sat 
there, holding her uncomfortably bent above him, and went 


Tea for Four at “Mermaid’s Rest” 171 

on pressing his face into her breast and his hands into her 
back till she was breathless and faint. 

Another moment, and Fringal would come in. But 
suddenly on the other door—the door she had come in at 
—sounded a loud anxious knocking. Elmer heard it and 
set her free. The door opened slowly and Rwth came 
in. Just afterwards came Fringal. He started at sight 
of Gillian. Stared. Coughed. Went into a fit of 
laughter. 

Rwth held a tea-tray, and putting a cloth on the table 
she laid tea. She looked at her master, and then pointed 
enquiringly at Fringal. 

“No. In the kitchen with you,” said Elmer. 

Evidently they all three had meals together as a rule. 

“I want Rwth to have tea with us!” said Gillian. 

“No! By God!” 

“If you dunna let Rwth sit down along of us, I’m off.” 

Gillian was redder than any rose, and there were tears 
in her eyes. Looking at her, Rwth nodded softly three 
times. Yes! she would sit down with them, whatever 
happened afterwards. 

“I say no!” said Elmer. 

“I say good-evening to you!” said Gillian. 

Fringal hurried to usher her out. 

“Oh, bide! Bide!” said Elmer irritably. “Fetch two 
more cups, wench. But after tea they’ll go,” he finished. 

“And me—in a bit after.” 

“A bit after. Not when they do.” 

Rwth returned with two kitchen cups and a pot of in¬ 
ferior tea for herself and Fringal. 

“You pour out,” said Elmer. 

“Not Rwth?” 

“I’ll not hear you say the name again. Here’s your 
chair. Now then!” 

Very nervously Gillian did so. 

“Sugar, Mr. Fringal? Sugar, Rwth?” 

It seemed so strange. She was using the same phrases 


172 


Seven for a Secret 


as her Aunt Fanteague used. Yet here they echoed hol¬ 
lowly. It seemed even to her untrained imagination that 
these people were outside the ordinary give and take of 
life. Rwth drank her tea as if it were a witch-broth. 
Fringal ate his bread-and-butter as if he were a ship¬ 
wrecked mariner with his last biscuit. Elmer simply stared 
at her, wondered at her, drank nothing, ate nothing, but 
sent Rwth into the kitchen four times for different things 
he imagined Gillian might like. 

Fringal eyed him; frowned; drank his tea at a gulp, 
and said without apparent reason, “A dog-bee!” 

No one took any notice. Gillian, anxious to be cour¬ 
teous, said: 

“What was that, Mr. Fringal?” 

“A dog-bee,” repeated Fringal sullenly, “a dog-bee, and 
a queen-bee and two workers.” 

“Kennel!” said Elmer, comprehending and quelling 
immediately. 

Gillian was more puzzled than ever. 

“Yo bein’ the queen,” he explained, “and him the dog¬ 
bee, which is to say, the drone.” 

Gillian blushed more than ever. A country girl could 
not fail to see the interpretation. 

“You’d best feed the pigs,” said Elmer. 

“When I’ve done me tea.” 

“Look sharp, then!” 

Fringal swallowed a few more ship’s biscuits and de¬ 
parted in a silent paroxysm. 

Elmer glanced at Rwth, who had not finished her tea, 
having been cutting bread-and-butter. 

“Out!” he said. 

She got up and went towards the door. 

“She hanna finished her tea!” cried Gillian. “And 
what for d’you speak to her like that?” 

Elmer’s eyes looked angrily into Gillian’s; lingered; 
melted. 

“Finish!” he commanded Rwth. 


Tea for Four at “Mermaid’s Rest” 173 

He seemed unable to speak to her except in single words 
and the imperative. 

She sat down and gulped her tea and bread-and-butter 
very much as the Israelites must have eaten the Passover. 
Gillian, her egotism penetrated by curiosity, watched her 
and noticed the sweat beading her forehead. ^Before she 
had finished the last mouthful Rwth got up and made for 
the door, as if thankful to escape from Elmer’s glowering 
eyes. Elmer came and sat down by Gillian. 

“What for do you speak to Rwth like that?” she re¬ 
peated. 

“That’s not your business, Gillian.” 

“If I want to know, it’s my business.” 

“If I tell you, will you give me another kiss with the 
catkins?” 

Gillian considered. She had not liked his face being 
pressed against her breast. It made her feel hot and awk¬ 
ward. She wondered if she would have disliked it as much 
if it had been Robert’s face instead of Elmer’s. But it 
was difficult to imagine Robert, the composed and chilly, 
in such a position. 

Still, the embrace had stirred curiosity. And Gillian 
really wanted to know more about Rwth, who awakened 
in her the same shivering wonder as the old terrible tales 
of Faery—such as Jack the Giant-killer—stir in the mind 
of a child. 

“I’ll draw the lamb’s-tails across your face, Mr, Elmer, 
if that’s what you mean; and now tell!” 

“Well, if you want to know why I speak to her like I 
do, it’s because she wouldn’t understand anything else. 
She’s got no soul.” 

“No soul! Laws! Is she a child of sin like me?” 

“Child of sin? You?” 

He was half-way between awe and laughter. 

“Ah! They got in when I was a baby. They came 
round like wasps and put a mark on me. Look yer!” 

She lifted her hair. 


174 


Seven for a Secret 


“Only Robert Rideout can save me,” she added. 

Elmer gave a kind of half-groan, half-laugh; and 
stooping, kissed the scar. “He couldn’t save you: but 
you’re no child of sin,” he said, and laughed. 

“I doubt I’ve got no soul,” said Gillian. 

“I don’t care whether you’ve got a soul or not.” 

“But if I hadna, I’d be only like that Mermaid—wan¬ 
dering and wailing and leaving a bit of money here and 
a bit there, and yet she couldna buy love-” 

“You mean the one outside—the Naked Maiden?” 

Under his look Gillian blushed; then she dropped her 
lashes; blushed deeper; bit her lip and tried to get to the 
door. 

But his arms were round her again. He lifted her face 
to see its confusion. 

“Robert Rideout can have your soul and welcome,” he 
laughed, “if I can have-” He left the sentence un¬ 

finished. 

“Shall you be awake early to-morrow?” he asked. 

“I dunno.” 

“Well, mind you are. There’ll be something you’ll 
like to see. Look out at six.” 

“Oh!” 

“And I’ll take you to the May Fair at Weeping Cross 
if you like.” 

“Maybe: but I’ll be going now. Good evening to you, 
Mr. Elmer.” 

He let her go. As he watched her pass the window he 
drew his sleeve across his hot face and said to himself: 

“She’s got you, Ralph, lad.” 

Again the dark, gloomy look came over him. “If 
only-” he muttered. And again: “If only-” 

Rwth came in to clear the table. Suddenly Elmer 
snatched up the riding-whip. 

“Get out!” he shouted, threatening her with it. “Get 
out, you slut!” 




Tea for Four at “Mermaid’s Rest” 175 


When she had gone, with the same submissive apathetic 
obedience as always, he flung himself into the armchair. 

“The old man won’t like it,” he thought. “He’s the 
sort to be roaring-mad if his gal’s made into a nay- 
word. But still! And there’s Fringal. . . . What about 
Fringal?” 

As if in answer to his question the knowing face of that 
gentleman peered obliquely through a crack of the door. 
Fringal never opened a door wide. To see him open one 
was like watching a man with a closely-guarded secret. 

“What d’you want?” queried Elmer. 

“A rise.” 

“Oh. That’s the tune of it.” 

Fringal gave his reedy wheeze of a laugh. 

“How much?” 

“Five shilling a week.” 

“Robbery.” 

“I canna be sure of my tongue under five shilling.” 

“But if I give that?” 

“Mum. Mum as a mole six foot under. Mum as a 
shell-bound chick. Mum as a fish in a frozen pond. . . .” 

“Mum. That’ll do.” 

Fringal gazed into the fire regretfully, as if he saw there 
all the picturesque illustrations of mumness he was for¬ 
bidden to use. 

Elmer pulled out the washleather bag that was his purse. 

“There!” he said. “The first week.” 

“Thank you kindly, sir.” 

Fringal pocketed the money, nodded, creased up with 
laughter, turned to go. 

“Fringal!” 

“Ay, sir?” 

“Take the white hen and her clutch of chickens in the 
morning, early, to old Lovekin’s. Get there at six.” 

“What’s he give you for ’em?” 

Fringal spoke jealously. He had set the clutch of eggs, 


176 


Seven for a Secret 


and tended the hen, and fed the chicks with soft food 
many times a day. He would miss them. 

“That’s my business.” 

“Oh, that’s your business, be it? Did you gather the 
eggs, and set ’em, and coax un on, and coddle with un, 
and wire ’em in from rats, and help out the chicks, and 
all? Did yer? And now it’s your business!” 

“I’m satisfied with what I get.” 

“Where be I to put ’em?” 

“You can take ’em inside the garden wicket and turn 
’em abroad on the grass. At six. Then come away.” 

“Nought said?” 

“Nought.” 

“Mum’s the word, then, chicks, or-” 

Fringal nodded softly; made his mouth like the slit in 
a small country letter-box, winked, wheezed, opened the 
door charily and was gone. 



chapter xviii: The Gifts of Ralph Elmer 
to Gillian Lovekin 

I N the grey dusk of morning Fringal knelt beside the 
coop of the white hen, and by the light of a lantern 
lifted her into a basket. 

“I’ll miss yer,” he observed to the furious, clucking, 
pecking white bundle of motherhood. 

As he placed each chick beneath her calming feathers 
he sighed, lingering over the job. Then he set out across 
the dawn-cold moor, to carry Ralph Elmer’s first love- 
gift to Gillian. He went in at the wicket according to 
orders and emptied his basket on the wet grey lawn. 
Whereat the contents divided like quicksilver into twelve 
small yellow bits and one large white bit, and were seri¬ 
ously disturbed. At the clucking, Gillian, just out of bed, 
came to the window. 

“Why, dear to goodness, Mr. Fringal, what’n you doing 
upsetting Mr. Elmer’s clutch o’ chickens in our garden?” 

“Orders is orders,” replied Fringal, “but if I ’ad my 
way I’d lug ’em back. They’d be better at our place, a 
power.” 

“But they inna for us, Mr. Fringal! Father hanna 
bought ’em. It was only yesterday as he said we’d got 
too many broodies, and he said there’d be such a sight of 
chickens as it ud be fowl every day of the week on our 
table.” 

“Orders is orders.” 

“Did Mr. Elmer tell you to bring ’em?” 

“Should I bring my best clutch to this God-’elp place 
if he didna?” 

“And to empty ’em just there?” 


178 Seven for a Secret 


“Should I play such a fool’s game if I was left to 
meself ?” 

“It must be a mistake, Mr. Fringal.” 

“Shall I tell un you dunna want ’em?” asked Fringal 
persuasively. 

Something in his expression, in his way of appealing to 
her, conveyed the truth to Gillian. The hen and chickens 
were a gift for her. That was why she was to look out 
at six. 

She was pleased and she was afraid. Robert had never 
given her such a present. Her lips turned downwards 
scornfully. Robert was only a cowman-shepherd. Why 
must she always think of Robert? Didn’t her father for¬ 
bid it? Didn’t her aunt forbid it? Hadn’t Robert brought 
her home by force and ordered her to make a prickly 
cross? 

“It was like Bob’s owdaciousness,” she thought. And 
because Ralph was not Robert, she was suddenly angry 
with Robert. She leant out in the pink dressing-jacket, 
given her by Aunt Emily. She had been shocked one day 
to find Gillian doing her hair in her chemise, and had 
said: 

“Even if the folk in the street can’t see you, Gillian, 
there’s always the angels.” 

“Mr. Fringal!” she said, looking like a rose. 

“Ah?” said Fringal. To himself he added: “A brazen 


“Tell ’im, Mr. Fringal, please, as it’s the best clutch 
ever I see. And as soon as I come down I’ll kiss the chicks 
every one as quick as I can ketch ’em. And tell ’im 
they’re like yellow catkins. And there’s a shilling for 
yerself.” 

Blushing very much, Gillian withdrew. 

Fringal picked up the shilling—remembered that this 
would all happen again—remembered also the five shilling 
rise—and decided to give the message. 

Once outside the wicket in the shelter of the privet 


The Gifts of Ralph Elmer 179- 

hedge, he doubled up with long-suppressed laughter. Jona¬ 
than, taking swedes to the sheep, saw him, watching and 
appraising him with curiosity. 

“Colic or rheumatics?” he asked. 

“Eh?” 

“What ails you, two-double the like o’ that’n?” 

“I was a-laughing.” 

“What at?” 

“A five shilling rise.” 

“Oh, well, you didna look so much like a rise as at 
twinge to me. You mind me of the Ghost of Little 
Endor as took ’er sister’s lover, and the sister said: ‘Your 
laughter shall turn to wailing.’ And sure enough, when 
they come to the church door, and he says summat a bit 
lively in her ear, she means to give a laugh, but what she 
did give was a long, fearsome wail, like an owl, as echoed 
and echoed and froze the marrow. And when the bride 
was abed and the bridegroom comes into the chamber and 
whispers summat to make ’er colour up and laugh, what 
did she did but give that awful skrike agen. And it come 
to pass as whenever he was nigh, and she should ha’ been- 
merry, she wailed. So ’e tired of it, and left ’er, and went 
to the South Seas and married a black ooman. But the 
lady of Little Endor died, and every year, when the wed¬ 
ding night comes round, you can hear un wailing. So 
when I sees you all two-double, I says: ‘Maybe he comes 
from Little Endor.’ ” 

A spasm went across Fringal’s face, and he said hur¬ 
riedly: 

“I’ve nought to hide.” 

“Yo mind me of the man as stole the sacrament cup 
for the glitter of it,” said Jonathan. “Between sacrament 
and locking up he took it, and they seed him running away 
with it acrost the meadows. He wunna his own man, like, 
a bit of a ratling ’e alius was.” 

“A near relation of yourn?” queried Fringal, but the 
satire was lost on Jonathan, who was sublimely unaware: 


180 


Seven for a Secret 


of his own fame as a buffoon, and always told stories 
about people exactly like himself, to the delight of the 
countryside. 

“No relation at all,” he answered. “So he put it under 
the pillow and went to bed, and when the constable come 
in, he says: ‘I’ve nowt to hide ! 5 he says, all of a twitter, 
Tve nowt to hide, but I’m took ill/ he says, ‘and I munna 
be moved.’ So then o’ course the constable knowed.” 

“Your tales,” said Fringal glumly, “bin lies, I do be¬ 
lieve. They inna true tales. You maken ’em up, old 
man. They’m lies—lies—lies.” 

With a defiant stare he dodged past Jonathan and set 
off home. Not only had he lost his clutch of chickens, 
but Jonathan, the fool of the country, had probed his soul, 
had ventured into those recesses where the notices against 
trespass were plain to be seen. He was very much out of 
temper. 

“Well?” asked Ralph on his return. 

“Er says they’re like nowt but yaller catkins,” said 
Fringal insultingly, and was surprised to hear a shout of 
laughter from his master. 

“To-morrow,” said Ralph, “you can take the two 
Aylesbury ducks. She admired ’em.” 

“To-morrow!” 

“And the next day, and the day after, and on and on 
till-” 

Ralph smiled. 

“There’s one thing I know about women,” he said, 
“though I’ve had nought to do with ’em, and that is, you 
must hurry ’em.” 

“Nought to do with ’em—saving one,” said Fringal 
gloomily. “I reckon you mean no good to that young 
woman yonder-” 

“I’m not going to marry her, as you know very well.” 

Fringal went into a fit of laughter. 

“Every day at six you’ve got to be there. I’ll tell you 




The Gifts of Ralph Elmer 181 

each day what to take. Turn ’em abroad, call out some¬ 
thing so’s she’ll hear, and come away.” 

“You wunna get ’er.” 

“Oh!” 

“I heerd that old foolish man, Makepeace, talking in 
the bar one day, and he says she’s sweet on young Rideout. 
And he makes up songs and rhymes about ’er. You canna 
make ’em.” 

Elmer mused. 

“I can’t make ’em, that’s true,” he said. “And maybe 
she’ll get tired of ‘The lily’s white, the violet blue.’ But 
I can buy ’em.” 

Fringal laughed long and silently. 

“A five shilling rise for me. The fowl yard for Gwlfas 
farm. Money for songs to Rideout. Laws me, Maister! 
You’ll come to the House yet!” 

Fringal walked away with dignity. 

“I’ve gi’ed un one for ’isself,” he thought. “And I 
gi’ed old Makepeace one for ’isself too.” Which was pre¬ 
cisely the phrase Jonathan used when describing the inter¬ 
view to his wife. 

“I gi’ed old Fringal one for ’isself,” said he. 

“I’m sure you did, my dear,” said she soothingly. 

The scene was re-enacted next day. 

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” cried Fringal, drearily, beneath Gil¬ 
lian’s window. 

Two white ducks greeted her. 

Fringal departed, and met Jonathan outside, ready for 
conflict. 

On the third day, when Fringal’s “Oh! Oh! Oh!” 
sounded, there was a turkey. On the fourth, a lamb. On 
the fifth, two little pigs. On the sixth, a yearling calf. 

“Dear soul,” said Jonathan, in the kindly, protecting 
voice he used towards the Mallard’s Keep idiot, “dear 
soul, hold your hand a bit! We’m used up our thankyers. 
You mind me of the tale o’ ‘Give-and-it-shall-be-given.’ 


182 


Seven for a Secret 


There was a very ancient lady, and she was a miser. So 
the vicar took a vow as he’d make her give in the collec¬ 
tion, which she wouldn’t never do. And he laboured ter¬ 
rible over the sermon. Well, she got to hear of it. And 
she was one as liked a joke. So she says: ‘Give, shall I? 
Give I will!’ she says. ‘The sermons be long,’ she says, 
‘the giving shall be long, too.’ And when Sunday came, 
she walks up the church with two great bags o’ brown linen, 
as she’d set the maid to sew. And what d’you think was 
in em r 

“I’m sure I dunna know, old man. But you’re keeping 
me a tedious time,” grumbled Fringal. 

“Fardens! They was chock-full o’ fardens!” said 
Jonathan. “And she kept the congregation two mortal 
hours, and the band playing every tune they could mind 
(for there was no organs then) while she doled them 
fardens into the gathering-bag. Bag I says! But a-many 
and a-many bags it was, and such a to-and-agen for the 
wardens, and such a tittering! The vicar never preached 
‘Give-and-it-shall-be-given,’ agen.” 

“If you’d bin born an ’oney-fly,” said Fringal, “yer 
tongue wouldna ha’ bin longer, but it would ha’ bin more 
useful, a power.” 

“Take a rest, Lord’s Day!” said Jonathan. 

“That’ll be as the fool I work for chooses,” replied 
Fringal. 

But on Sunday, just as Isaiah and Gillian sat down to 
breakfast, Fringal appeared again, leading a little hill pony 
brought back by Ralph on Friday. It had a side-saddle, 
and a bridle with silver fittings. 

“Ha!” said Isaiah on the doorstep. 

Each day he had said “Ha!” but this was beyond all 
expectations, and he said it so loudly that the pony lifted 
liquid, startled eyes. 

“Tell ’im—” said Gillian, trembling a little, “tell 
’’im- r ’ 

She stopped, for Robert was coming across from the 



The Gifts of Ralph Elmer 183 

fold. Robert was looking at her with dark eyes, hard 
and steely with pain. 

“What be I to tell ’im, missus?” asked Fringal. 

Robert was near. He was looking down at her. His 
eyes were shining with anger. And as Isaiah stooped over 
the pony, his mouth, his beautiful, slow-smiling mouth said 
very low: 

“Bought! A bought woman! Gillian, you dunna love 
the man. Send it back!” 

Isaiah was in ecstasies, looking into the pony’s eyes, into 
her mouth, running his hands up and down her hocks. 

“A right good un!” he said. “Pedigree! That’s what 
she is! Good enough for stud.” 

Robert’s eyes were compelling. 

“Send it back. Now!” he said. Then, since he saw 
that it was the deciding moment between himself and 
Elmer, he added: 

“Gillian! He dunna mean marrying you. Shall I tell 
you what kind o’ woman you’ll be if you keep this 
pony?” 

Gillian stamped. 

“Husht! Husht!” she said. “You forget yer place, 
Robert Rideout.” 

Robert turned his back on her and walked away. 

“Please to take the pony round, Robert!” said she. 

He took no notice. 

“Robert!” 

This was Isaiah. 

“Sir!” 

“Take the pony, oot?” 

“I wunna, sir, and that’s flat.” 

“What? Not take the pony?” 

“I’ll never have nowt to do with it, sir; I’ll neither 
harness it nor water it, nor litter it down, nor take no 
notice of it. Step-father mun do it. You can give me 
notice if you’ve a mind.” 

“No.” 


184 Seven for a Secret 

“Thank you, sir. Tell the old man as step-father ’ll 
see to it. 5 ’ 

There were tears in Gillian’s eyes as they re-entered the 
house. 

Isaiah looked at her archly. 

“Seems like as if Elmer’s moving house to the Gwlfas,” 
he remarked. “Very like it, it seems.” And, thinking 
of the aggrandisement of the Gwlfas during the last seven 
days, he gave his great comfortable laugh. He rose and 
went to the old dilapidated bureau with its doors of small, 
greenish panes set in with lead. From a small drawer he 
took a magnet; from Gillian’s workbox he fetched a 
needle, and he proceeded to demonstrate with them. 

“That’s how it is with our neighbour, I’m thinking,” 
he said, “you being the magnet. Dunna go to think of 
what a cowman-shepherd says. Many’s the ride you’ll go 
on that nice little pony. We’ll ask Elmer to eat a bit of 
dinner with us, come next Sunday.” 

Gillian tried to put away her uneasiness. But Robert’s 
eyes, Robert’s prophetic words, remained in her memory 
all day. 

Ralph was awaiting Fringal as usual. 

“Well?” he asked. 

“Young Rideout towd ’er to send it back,” said Fringal. 

“But she didn’t.” 

“Would any woman in this mortal world send back a 
thing as meant good money? She says: ‘Take it to stable,’ 
’er says. And Rideout says ‘No,’ and ’e giv her a talking- 
to, and he says very nigh straight out as you’d make her 
a w’ore.” 

“Damn the fellow! He can’t know?” 

“He knows nowt. But there’s so many words in his 
yead with this old poetry as he does maken, that it makes 
’im frangy.” 

“What did she say?” 

“Oh, she looked very old-fashioned, and went as red 
as a peony, and cried.” 


The Gifts of Ralph Elmer 185 

“Oh, damn!” 

“And he says he wunna take no notice o’ the beasts as 
you send. Not if it’s ever so. He took on awful.” 

“And she cried? She must like the fellow.” 

“It’s them rhymes, I reckon.” 

Ralph pondered. His pondering resulted in his arriving, 
at a thundering gallop, at the gate of the Gwlfas late in 
the day when every one was out except Robert. 

“Evening, Rideout.” 

“Evening.” 

“Bin making any poetry lately, Rideout?” 

“How d’you know I make it?” 

“Fringal heard Jonathan say so in the bar.” 

“Oh, step-father! He’s a silly old man with a maggot 
of story-telling in brain. He makes things up faster than 
a child can make a tossy-ball.” 

“And I asked yer mother.” 

Robert sighed. 

“Oh, well, if mother told you-” 

“Do yer make love poems, Bob?” 

“Love poems?” 

“Ah! Look you, Bob. Lend me half-a-dozen of ’em, 
as short as you like—and I’ll give you ten pound.” 

“Lord love you!” said Robert, laughing, “they inna 
worth a farden.” 

“Lend ’em to me?” 

“Be you in love?” 

“Ah.” 

“Who with?” 

“You know.” 

“If you’re in love and I’m not, you’d ought to be able 
to write love-poems.” 

“But I can’t. I have to keep on at ‘The lily’s white, 
the violet’s blue!’ And she’ll tire of that.” 

“Look you! ” said Robert. “When you go to the forge 
of Trewern Coed and you say to Gruffydd Conwy, ‘Shoe 
my cob!’ and you go away, and folks say: ‘Where did you 



186 


Seven for a Secret 


get your nag shod?’ you’d answer ‘Gruffydd Conwy, of 
the Smithy of Trewern Coed, shod my nag.’ And whether 
they liked the plating or whether they didna, it ud be the 
same. And so it is with the bits of things I put together 
in my head. For a man’s work is the man, if it’s made 
of iron with an ’ammer, or if it’s made of words. He 
sweats for it, and it’s hisn. And what’s the man—or 
woman either—without the work? I’d sell you my pen- 
nillions if they were in a book, for you to read if you 
wanted to: but I wunna sell ’em for ’em to be yours. Sup¬ 
pose the Squire came to GrufFydd and says: ‘Conwy, I’m 
a do-nought. I’ll pay you a hundred pound to say I make 
your horse-shoes.’ And suppose Conwy took it? What’d 
he be then? He wouldna be Squire. He wouldna be 
smith. He’d be a man of nought. And if I sold you my 
pennillions, what ud I be? And what ud you be? She 
wouldna like you the better for being mommocked up with 
another chap’s thinking. If she likes you, she likes you 
because of the things you canna do, as much as for the 
things you can. But I hope she dunna like you.” 

Their eyes met, stilly, but none the less savagely. 

In Ralph’s was passion, mingled with defiance and 
devilry. In Robert’s was passion also, and defiance and 
devilry, but there was also the poet’s intuitive knowledge. 

“There’s summat dark in your life, Elmer,” he said. 
“Take thought if you’d ought to come nigh anything so 
bright as Gillian Lovekin.” 

“Let Gillian decide.” 

At his mention of her name Robert ground his heel into 
the path, so that a large stone beneath it burst into frag¬ 
ments. 

“Let the best man win,” added Elmer. 

“I dunna set up to be the best. And in this world the 
best dunna often win. But I’ll say, ‘Let the man as ud 
do most for ’er win—in the long run.’ ” 

“How d’you mean?” 

“I mean as it isn’t to-day, nor to-morrow, nor in a year 


The Gifts of Ralph Elmer 187 

as the truth comes out and the metal’s tried. Jacob worked 
seven year for Rachel and counted it nought. You canna 
tire love. You canna tire life. You canna escape the 
words you’ve set ringing and the deeds as you’ve set 
blazing.” 

“You’re in love with the girl, Rideout.” 

“And if I was in love,” said Robert, a spasm of acute 
pain passing across his face, “if I was in love, must I mouth 
it to you, Elmer? If I was in love, and she wi’ me and 
all well, dun you think I’d stand here argling the like of 
this?” 

“You are in love; I know. I’ve got it bad myself. 
Now fair and square, Rideout! What’ll you take to give 
me first chance?” 

“First chance and last chance and all—they’re yours,” 
said Robert, with intense bitterness. “Amna I cowman- 
shepherd? Inna you a moneyed man? I’m not entered 
for this ’ere race. All I says is, let the child be, Elmer.” 

“But supposing as she’s sweet on me, what then?” 

“If so be she was sweet on you, Elmer, though I canna 
say as I like you, there’s nought in the world I wouldna 
do for you—that is”—he gave a little awkward laugh— 
“that is, if I could keep my fists off you.” 

“What sort o’ things ud you do for me?” 

“Dig yer garden, plough yer land; I shouldna wonder 
if I’d pretty well kill myself for a chap she was set on— 
if so be I was in love with ’er.” 

“She’s set on me. I’ll tell you something—she kissed 
me of her own accord-” 

Hatred, stifled but violent, blazed in Robert’s face. 
And though Elmer was the taller man, he flinched before 
the savage intensity of Robert’s spirit, which seemed to 
give more breadth to his broad shoulders, more muscle to 
his strong clenched hands. 

Urgently, almost pleadingly, Robert motioned him to 
be gone. Hoarsely, almost in a whisper, he besought 
Ralph not to make of him a murderer. 



188 


Seven for a Secret 


“Out of my sight, man! Out of my sight!” he im¬ 
plored. “I canna answer for myself. I said ‘If I could 
keep my fists off you! ’ ” 

Elmer, astonished and offended, departed. 

So this was what the men that made up songs were like. 
He had imagined them quiet and peaceable, and had never 
dreamt that Robert would refuse good money for a few 
bits of paper. 

“Dang me! What a temper! All of a blaze before 
you could say ‘Jack Sprat!’ I’d as lief not meet him in 
a lonely place after Gillian-” He fell into a medi¬ 

tation; began to whistle, “The Lily’s White,” squared his 
shoulders; said, “What a pother about a girl!” and 
strolled home. 

Robert, meanwhile, was thundering round the far pas¬ 
ture, “taking the devil out,” as he said. This he did to 
such good effect that when he and the young horse re¬ 
turned they were both dripping with sweat, and neither of 
them wanted anything in the world but a long drink and 
a long sleep. 

“I reckon,” observed Robert in an interval of vigorous 
grooming, “as you’ll do a many of these gallops in the 
next few weeks, my bird!” 

And it was so. 



chapter xix: Bloom in the Orchard 


R OBERT flung himself into his work and his poem' 
about the Gwlfas. And, because he was so deter¬ 
mined not to notice Gillian and Ralph, he did not notice, 
either, Gillian’s wistful glances in his direction. She rode 
her new pony. She fed her chickens and all her other 
living toys. The gifts went on. But, having culminated 
in Fringal’s beloved little cush-cow—the hornless cow that 
is regarded as a special favourite on farms—they took the 
form of furniture. Whether Elmer had sufficient irony 
in his composition to think that he might get all these things 
back again, with Gillian included—as people put water 
into a pump to fetch up more—is doubtful. He was not 
a complex person. He wanted Gillian’s favour. Concrete 
things seemed to him desirable, especially to woman: there¬ 
fore he sent them to her. Being in love and in suspense 
were irksome. He was quite genuinely and completely in 
love. When he was with Gillian he felt as the passionate 
lover of flowers and leaves sometimes feels—in despair 
at the impossibility of wholly possessing the beloved crea¬ 
ture. Whether the creature be a flower or a human being 
it is the same longing, the same despair. “Touch not, 
taste not, handle not,” is no text for lovers or mystics. 
The mystic, if his way to God lies through nature, is not 
content with looking. He wants the nearer, the dearer, 
the more primitive and spiritual senses. He must kneel 
down and gather beauty; grasp it; embrace it. He must 
even eat of it and drink of it. He must absorb it, be 
nourished upon it. So Robert began by grasping Gillian’s 
spirit, and Elmer caught her hands; flung himself on the 
floor and held her feet in his grasp; wound her hair about 
his fingers; kissed her, and still implored with thirsty 

189 


190 


Seven for a Secret 


eyes. And Gillian being already in love with Robert, now 
fell in love with passion. What woman, who is a woman 
at all, does not do so at some time in her life? What 
woman is not glad and glorified to be made sister of the 
silken narcissus, the delicate anemone—to be desired? For 
a woman’s greatest career is love—spiritual and physical 
(and the two are one), and the crown of her career is a 
child. And whatever else she may be, and obtain, and 
create, she will if she misses these die with the knowledge 
of defeat. For a man it is not always so. A man’s genius 
is ego-centric—a woman’s altruistic—sacrificial. A man 
is himself whether he loves or not. A woman who has 
not supremely given herself is not supremely herself. Her 
work is halt and blind. She has not lost her life; so she 
has not found it. Robert could still make his poem about 
Dysgwlfas, though his heart was riven for Gillian. But 
Gillian had no more interest in her singing since she fell 
in love with Robert—which happened while she made the 
thorny cross, and of which she knew nothing. Her sub¬ 
conscious self perhaps knew, but she would not listen to it. 
There was a hunger in her heart. Elmer assuaged it. 
Robert absolutely ignored her. Therefore being a vivid 
and eager creature, she took the brightest path. But every 
time when, as she parted from Elmer, he kissed her so 
wildly, she, with shut eyes and soul gathered inwards, said,, 
“It’s Robert! It’s Robert!” 

And every night when she closed her eyes in her little 
room at the Gwlfas she entranced herself by remember¬ 
ing Elmer’s kisses in conjunction with Robert’s eyes. She 
always saw Robert angry, with eyes that flashed fire, and 
it was a triumphant moment of the imagination when she 
had conjured into unity Elmer’s hot love and the angry 
eyes of Robert. Whatever she may have thought or 
guessed in the past, she did not now think that Robert 
loved her. Like most women, she was a creature of 
actualities. If Robert loved her, he would give her pres¬ 
ents, live creatures, things of solid wood or metal, some- 


Bloom in the Orchard 


191 


thing she could see. Besides—she could never marry 
Robert. How could she call Mrs. Makepeace who was 
beginning to call her “Miss,” “Mother”? How silly! 
And Jonathan! And she would have to live always here 
in the manner of a humble cottager’s wife. No. She 
had been denied the joys she craved for, and she was quite 
as ambitious, in her humble way, as Cleopatra—and quite 
as savage. 

“If so be I get married to Ralph Elmer,” she reflected 
through the days of April, “I shall know I’m alive, any¬ 
way.” 

That was it. She must know she was alive. She must, 
at all costs, escape the fate of Emily. And with the rather 
pitiful illogicalness of woman in all times and in all places 
she would have been willing (if she had thought of it) to 
risk death in order to know she was alive. 

So she remained in love with passion, and Elmer was 
its exponent. Strange glories, strange despairs and won¬ 
ders dazzled her through the wild, chilly April days. For 
at Dysgwlfas April is cold as a snowflake. No blossom 
comes upon the trees, no pale light of primroses lies along 
the sparse woods until May. Then, one morning, behold! 
a white cloud is fallen on the damson tree, and soon in the 
little orchard, where the trees are all bent away from the 
west and so it seems there is always a great west wind 
blowing, soon, there come in the apple tree pink, close- 
fisted buds, like babies’ hands folded close on treasure. 
And late come the swallows, the blackcap and the willow- 
wren. Late sound the cuckoo’s two mellow bells. The 
Lent lilies in theTar pasture shiver in the chill air long 
after Easter, and often on the red flowering currant and 
the wreathed orange of the berberis by the dove-cote falls 
in May a white layer of snow colder than the damson 
blossom. The fruit sets at the Gwlfas in no easy South 
Country way. There are the plum winds and the cherry 
frosts, and wild rains to smite the pear blossom, and a 
last frost for the apple. And no sooner are these over 


192 


Seven for a Secret 


than it is thunder time. For the high lands draw the 
storms; night after night on the young green apples 
descend rains that are like thick, permanent wires taut 
between heaven and earth. 

But whether the blossom fell or the snow fell Elmer 
courted Gillian Lovekin—in the pastures, in the woods, 
on the moor, at the inn or at the farm. With his purpose 
flaming in his eyes so that she caught her breath with the 
fear of her half-comprehension, he strode through April— 
through her girlish shyness and angers and retreats, that 
were like April, towards May Day. 

For it was May Day that he had fixed in his own mind 
as the limit of his patience. 

So every lengthening day Fringal cried, “Oh! Oh! 
Oh!” beneath Gillian’s window; and the whole country¬ 
side stood amazed before the scriptural splendour of this 
wooing, which set the distant markets aflame with its ex¬ 
pensiveness, brought old sunbonneted heads close together 
over garden hedges, and set the young men in a roar as 
they lounged on village bridges, or took their quart mugs 
in lonely inns. But those that drank at the “Mermaid’s 
Rest” were mute, eyeing Elmer with mingled amusement 
and reverence. They appreciated the poetry of his court¬ 
ship, for country people are never blind to poetry when it 
is real, whether it is expressed in words or action. It is 
no uncommon sight, on the Welsh border, to see an old 
ploughman turned preacher for the Sabbath moved even 
to tears at the beauty of the Psalms or Isaiah. This was 
Elmer’s one poetic inspiration, and they accounted it to him 
for righteousness. One young farmer, generally consid¬ 
ered “near,” did say it was a fool’s game, and that Elmer 
could have had Jane Chips for a brace of pheasants. But 
he was quickly taken up by another, who said: 

“Eh! But what’s Jane Chips? That pitcher’s been 
to the well too often! A poor creature! Now Miss 
Lovekin—well, I’d half a mind myself—plenty of good 
red blood and a gallus laugh and innocent as a child.” 


Bloom in the Orchard 193 

“You couldna afford it, me lad.” 

“I met and I metna. But it’s no use to think on it, 
seemingly.” 

Meanwhile, Isaiah said “Ha!” at sight of the gifts; 
Jonathan jested with Fringal at the entering in of the 
wicket; Mrs. Makepeace sighed for her son; Gillian’s 
heart fluttered, rejoiced and boded; Elmer, without saddle 
or stirrups, but with red-tinted spurs, his knees gripping his 
horse’s panting sides, thundered down the lane, and Robert, 
without spurs, but with a more furious speed (though the 
thunder of his going was muffled), strove with his love 
and hate in the far pasture. And through all these spring 
days, in the strangest and most mysterious way, invisible 
threads spun themselves between the Unket Place and four 
very different people. One thread reached out to Gillian 
Lovekin, so that when she passed the Unket Place on her 
visits to the “Mermaid’s Rest,” or with Elmer’s arm about 
her, wandering on the moor, looking at its straight, dark 
line above the pale water, she would shiver. One thread 
reached out to the dumb girl and made her tremble as she 
gathered sticks there—for there was nowhere else to gather 
them—and as she wandered on strange, secret ploys of 
which there is more to hear. One thread held Elmer, so 
that he loathed the place, as he had loathed it upon the 
evening of his first coming—loathed and yet was drawn 
there by a darting curiosity. And one thread, taut and 
steady, held Robert Rideout, awoke in him again the 
knowledge that something awaited him there—there, in the 
little Gyland, where the blackthorn wove her crown of 
thorns, where the water moaned and the snow lay long. 
Something, some great decision, a thing that would make 
him for ever a god or a poor, mean creature, was preparing 
for him in the Unket Place. There, like a dark jester 
through a paper-covered hoop, evil would leap out. There, 
as in his dreams, Gillian would be saved or lost, saved or 
lost foi ever by some sacrificial deed that he must do. It 
would m" be in summer. No. In summer the Unket 


194 


Seven for a Secret 


Place seemed almost kind. The sleepy hemlock stood so 
high about it, hazy and foamy and pale; the white wild 
roses with blood-red thorns made impenetrable thickets; 
the stunted fir trees gave, though charily, their brown 
cones to the brown, loose, sandy soil. A magpie’s nest 
was in the tallest tree, and one magpie would sit all day 
above the low singing water, dreaming and for ever 
dreaming, as though he knew Gillian’s magpie song, and 
was cogitating about the secret that has never been told. 
The bracken grew stealthily and exquisitely taller and 
taller, until it was as high as Robert’s shoulder. Bitter- 
, sweet wreathed the hedges, and garlic mingled its biting 
scent with the slumbrous hemlock. Beneath the dark¬ 
leaved sloes and the dog-berry bushes were to be found 
here and there among the pine needles small neat plants 
of sanicle, with its gracious ivy-shaped leaves and its tall 
buds that flower in foaming white in May—the sanicle 
that, so the old books say, heals all outward hurts and 
inward wounds, and is the emblem, lovely, ephemeral, 
hardy, of love. 

And now, as April drew on to May, it was as though, 
in silence and in patience, invisible hands began to prepare 
a stage for some drama. The young pine needles pushed 
out; the elm leaves and alder leaves uncurled; the sloe 
had flowered; the white campion shot up; the larch set 
out her roses. Thfese roses would be cones, the campion 
broken, the elm and alder leaves spread amid the old pine 
needles, dark fruit hung thinly on the bare sloe, when that 
snow-weather came which was boded in Robert’s soul. 


chapter xx : Robert Pleaches the Thorn 
Hedge 

O N May morning, ever since Robert had come to the 
farm, he and Gillian had gone “neesening.” So, 
because he wanted to forget that he was not going neesen- 
ing to-day, Robert got up very early, and went off to 
pleach the big hedge at the foot of the far pasture. It 
was certainly a young man’s job. Every muscle of his 
shoulders and arms and back was called into play. Jona¬ 
than could never have done it. It was composed of huge 
may-trees, now set with green, bursting buds. Their thick 
trunks had to be felled like forest trees. Their huge inter¬ 
mingled branches had to be sawn off one by one with in¬ 
finite labour. It was a twenty-foot hedge, and so old that 
even the topmost boughs were thick and tough. At ordi¬ 
nary times Robert would have been annoyed with Isaiah 
for ordering the destruction of so much beauty. For the 
poet in him had loved this great wall of living green, all 
frothed with fragrant creamy flowers. But now he was 
glad when each blow sent a shock up his arms; when, with 
the final blow, the crash came; when the ivy-wreathed 
branches groaned under the saw. In a few hours he was 
surrounded by debris; the boughs lay in confusion; the 
rubbish of years—old nests, old leaves, dead twigs—fell 
out in clouds, was dust in his nostrils. 

“Well!” he observed satirically, as he sat down on a 
fallen trunk to eat his “ten o’clock,” “if I amna maying 
along with Gillian, I be maying.” 

And rising up in a little while, he set about the largest 
trunk he could find. 

He was so absorbed that he did not hear the voice of 
Gillian Lovekin sounding over the meadows from the fold. 

195 


196 Seven for a Secret 

Thin and wistful as the voice of a lost fairy it came— 
three times. 

“Robert Rideout! Robert Rideout! Robert Rideout!” 
Then it ceased. There was an urgency in it which came 
across the distance. But amid the echoing thuds of his 
axe, with a crackling of twigs and a smother of dust about 
him, Robert heard nothing, and, as no one knew where he 
was, no one came to disturb him, until, two hours later, a 
voice on the other side of the hedge observed: 

“Late for pleaching.” 

It was Gipsy Johnson. He stood there looking up at 
Robert with his chocolate eyes like a faithful dog. 

“Ah!” assented Robert without surprise, for it was 
Johnson’s time for going into Wales, and besides, he was 
seldom surprised at anything. 

“Ah! That’s gospel. It be late, but Maister would 
have it done. So you see I’m busy at it.” 

“By the looks you’ve bin at it for days.” 

“Only this morning.” 

“Dear ’eart! You’re a powerful good worker, Ride¬ 
out.” 

“Come over,” said Robert. “There’s a drop of beer. 
Come over and sit you down.” 

“Well, lad,” observed Johnson when he had climbed 
over and taken off his hat so that the wind could play in 
his long grey hair. “Well, we stopped her.” 

“Ah!” Robert spoke without enthusiasm. 

He felt the irony of the fact that he had brought Gillian 
back just in time for Elmer. 

“Ah! I was in a pother when I found out what she was 
after,” said Johnson, chuckling as he filled and lit his clay. 
Then a sad and gloomy look came over his face and he 
said: 

“It met ha’ bin my own, my little dark-eyed Ailse.” 

“Who was that?” 

“My little girl as disappeared.” 

“She’d got black eyes?” 


Robert Pleaches the Thorn Hedge 197 

“Ah. Like her mother. I told ye about Esmeralda?” 

“Ah. I know about Esmeralda.” 

“Well, I took Esmeralda whome to my new caravan 
one Lammastide. And in early May the little un was 
born. And Esmeralda sends the old ooman for me so 
soon as she was lighted of the child, and she looks up at 
me with that smile, and she says: ‘At last! At last!’ 
‘Why,’ says the old ooman, ‘you couldna ha’ given him 
a little un much quicker, lass.’ And she beckons the old 
ooman out (oh! she’d a proud way time and agen, had 
Esmeralda) and she whispers ‘At last the hunger’s better.’ 
And I didna understand. So she says ‘Since I seed ye, I’ve 
hungered and thirsted to go to hell for ye,’ she says. ‘And 
now I’ve been. And eh! But I’m glad!’ Rideout, would 
any other woman say that?” 

“Maybe—one or two.” 

Robert thought of one who would not—yet. Would 
she ever cease to be a frozen fairy and ask to go to hell 
for a man? What man? 

“Lad! dunna grind yer teeth the like of that’n. It’s 
unlucky,” said Johnson. “Well, so the child grew and 
got plump and her was the spit and image of Esmeralda. 
My Lord! Johnson was a gay man them days. Work! 
You couldna tire me. Come back in the evening and there 
they was. Like birds in a nest. She nursed the child— 
our folk think it sin not to. And she’d sing to it. And 
she took and sewed all my gold buttons on its little gown. 
And some necklaces as I’d took for a nag in lieu of money 
she put round its neck, and gold buckles on its shoes. And 
one time when we went through Sil’erton, nought would 
do but I must buy the child a coral rattle like what the 
little lords and ladies have. For she said: ‘Gipsy John¬ 
son’s the Lord of Creation for me.’ Laws! The things 
she’d say. Well, the long and the short is, one day the 
child went.” 

“Went?” 

“Ah. Just went. Esmeralda left her in cradle by the 


198 


Seven for a Secret 


caravan while she fetched the water. And when she come 
back, the child was gone. Her said it was the fairies, and 
sure enough I dunna see who else it was.” 

“Didn’t you ever find her?” 

“We didn’t never—we looked high and we looked low, 
but never—never—did we find ’er.” 

“Could she walk?” 

“No.” 

“Somebody stole her.” 

“But it was such a lonesome place.” 

“Somebody must ha’ stole her.” 

“If I could find that man,” said Johnson with the whole 
savagery of his furthest ancestry in his quiet voice, “if I 

could only find ’im-” and gently, lovingly, he made the 

gesture of cutting his throat. 

“And watch ’im bleed!” he said savouringly. “Es¬ 
meralda went mad.” Robert bent his head before this old 
bitter sorrow. 

“Went mad, and died. I never heard tell of the child.” 

“What would she have bin like?” 

“You couldna tell, not well. But she’d ha’ bin summat 
like Esmeralda; she’d got the same dark hair and eyes.” 

“Clear black eyes?” 

“Ah. But they met alter.” 

“Could she talk?” 

“She could say bits o’ words. Not many. She was but 
five.” 

“How many years ago?” 

“Twenty-three. I was seven and twenty then.” 

A strange, triumphant look came into Robert’s face. 
Then he said: 

“But she could talk?” 

“I said as she could talk.” 

The triumphant look faded. 

“Ah! It was long ago,” said the gipsy, “very long ago, 
and it’s all gone over. But I’d lief find the child.” 



Robert Pleaches the Thorn Hedge 199 

“If there’s ought I can do,” said Robert, “you know 
where to come.” 

His eyes flashed. Johnson observed it. He knew the 
sign. That look came only when Robert loved or hated. 

Two very strong and dirty hands met in a grip that 
neither noticed particularly, though it would have made 
a townsman shout. 

“Lovekin’s got a new trap, seemingly,” observed John¬ 
son. “And a new friend.” 

“Who d’you mean?” 

“I seed your girl driving away with a big darkish chap 
in a bran new gig.” 

“That’s Mr. Elmer of the ‘Mermaid.’ ” 

“A new chap?” 

“Ah! Thatcher’s left.” 

“I thought the girl was yours.” 

“Oh, laws no! She took up with the new chap,” said 
Robert shortly. “I shouldna be surprised if he’s her ac¬ 
quaintance by now.” 

“Why dunna you kill ’im?” 

Johnson spoke with great simplicity. 

Robert laughed. 

“Well, we may be a bit rough in these parts,” he said, 
“but we dunna go as far as that.” 

“It’s what them black cattle do up in the mountains if 
they canna agree.” 

Robert felt that the black cattle had not grown up, and 
he had. He was too old for this infantile whimsey of 
hatred. 

“If it was me, I’d fight ’im.” 

“If she likes ’im best, let ’im take ’er!” said Robert. 
“I amna a murderer.” 

“You’re a queer ’un,” said Johnson, preparing to depart. 
“If it was me and I was a young chap like you, I’d have 
the wench in my caravan before nightfall. Well, good¬ 
bye to ye, Bob. See yer in the back-end.” 


200 Seven for a Secret 

“What did you say the little un’s name was?” asked 
Robert. 

“We called her Ailse.” 

“Ailse? That’s what town folk calls ‘Alice,’ inna it?” 

“Ah. Well, that’s what we called ’er. You should 
’a heard Esmeralda crooning it over in the twilight— 
‘Ailse—Ailse—Ailse!’ She learned her to say it and to 
say, ‘Gipsy Johnson’ and ‘Dad,’ and ‘Esmeralda’ and the 
names of the places we camped in. Well, I mun be 
going.” 

“Good-bye, Johnson, and good luck.” 

“I’ve no reason for such, for Esmeralda’s gone, and 
there’s no woman for me but Esmeralda.” 

Late in the evening, with aching back, Robert trudged 
home. And the result of his day’s cogitations was that 
Rwth must be taught to write. She must be taught in 
secret, by Gillian. Neither Elmer nor Fringal must 
know. And when she had learnt, he himself must question 
her. He must probe into her soul and see if it was gipsy. 
He must ask if she remembered jewels and golden buckles. 
He would ask Gillian the moment she came home. 


chapter xxi: Briar Roses 


W HEN Gillian awoke on that bright May morning, 
she suddenly wanted to go to the Fair at Weeping 
Cross with Robert; but yesterday she had finally promised 
to go with Elmer. This did not trouble her. Elmer 
would get over it. She had dreamt of Robert. In her 
dream Robert had been standing knee-deep in snow. His 
face was sad and wild. The cold wind blew about his 
dark hair. His hands were clenched. At his feet lay a 
dead lamb. Why should Robert be so miserable over a 
dead lamb? Then Mr. Gentle came and touched him on 
the shoulder, and Mr. Gentle’s eyes were streaming with 
tears. Robert turned unwillingly and went away with 
Mr. Gentle, who carried the prickly cross. And Gillian 
awoke crying out to Robert not to go with Mr. Gentle. 
There was something so grey and clammy and dreadful 
about him; if Robert went with him he would be changed. 
His hands would be no more the hard brown hands she 
knew. His face would not be weather-fresh, sunburnt 
and lean with health. He would become like Mr. Gentle. 
It was horrible. After she woke she still remembered it 
all and was urgent to find Robert, to tell him. Tell him 
what? How he would laugh! Still, she must find him. 

So she ran from fold to rickyard, from stable to shippen, 
but she could not find him. And then came Elmer, all 
impatience to be gone. 

But even as they drove away, she in all the pride of 
conscious beauty and admiration, he gay with the certainty 
of attainment, a foreboding of disaster was upon her. She 
struggled with it, and after a few miles of keen blue air 
it vanished. 


201 


Seven for a Secret 


202 

“I’ve ne’er been to this Fair afore,” she said. “There’ll 
be a power of folks, likely?” 

“I’ve never been neither. But I reckon there will. I 
shouldn’t care if there wasn’t anybody.” 

“Oh! What’s a Fair with nobody at it?” 

“There’d be you.” 

“Can I buy and sell and all?” 

“You can.” 

“Dear sakes, I’ve no money.” 

“You’ve got what money can’t buy.” 

“And what met that be?” 

“Love.” 

The word rang like a shot—like a gun-shot in a silent 
shelving wood. 

“But, what’ll love buy?” 

“All I’ve got!” 

“Oh! Mr. Elmer!” 

“YouVe a flower! You’re a bird! You’re a butter¬ 
fly!” said Elmer, unevenly, and he kissed her. So, with 
kisses and sudden embraces, with badinage and long urgent 
silences they came over the lovely levels, the steep descents 
of the moor. They came through the green places and 
the brown; they traversed the near and attained the far 
purple distance, and it melted before them and became the 
near. Then they saw a long way off, in a veil of rain, the 
small shining steeple, the low shining roofs—red and 
brown and blue—the clustered trees, half in leaf, the 
nestling ricks, the apple-green fields of Weeping Cross. 
They gazed on it. To her it was the site of a day’s revelry. 
It was a place to laugh in, to dine in, to shy at cocoanuts 
and look at fat oxen, buy a fairing and come away. It 
was a place she would have most liked to see in company 
with Robert; but as she could not, she liked almost as 
much to see it with Elmer. 

To Elmer it was a place utterly uninteresting until 
nightfall, although his whole life centred round such 
places on such days. He cared not a rap though he lost 


Briar Roses 


203 


as many good bargains as there were minutes in the day, 
so long as the day soon went. Fringal had said he must 
bring back a cow. The milk was sinking. A good cow. 
He could get one cheap. Had he not given the best to old 
Lovekin? “If you wait about a bit, you’ll likely get one 
cheap,” said Fringal. Good Lord! was he never to enjoy 
himself? Must he always keep his nose to the grindstone? 
How the road glistened! What a merry sound the ringing 
hoofs made! God! How green the honeysuckle hedges 
were! How many miles from home? How many miles 
from Isaiah? He laughed to himself. 

Gillian should come to the “Mermaid’s Rest.” She 
should have the best room. Rwth should wait on her. 
Oh! she should wait on her hand and foot like a slave 
in the Bible waiting on an Eastern Queen. 

“You’re a flower! You’re a bird! You’re a butter¬ 
fly!” said he again, far too much in love to be original. 
And Gillian laughed—much too gay and happy to be 
critical. She was looking almost beautiful, for she had 
magnetism, as Isaiah divined, and all her magnetism was 
alight. It beautified her as a veil often beautifies a plain 
woman. It gave her magic and romance and femininity. 
It set roses in her cheeks and blue lights in her eyes, it 
made her smile scarlet, sweet and lavish. 

They came quietly down the steep main street of Weep¬ 
ing Cross, where the shops had, like Jonah’s whale, given 
up that which they contained, and had spread it on trestles 
and booths. There were gay flowered chintzes and 
flannels, scarlet and white, and prints for summer frocks 
and sunbonnets and corduroys outside the drapers’; and 
wonderful bowls and tea-sets and coloured glass vases out¬ 
side the china shop; and great leather boots for ploughmen, 
and elastic-sided cashmere boots for people of eighty, and 
tiny white or red boots for people of one; there were sticks 
of pink rock and bull’s-eyes and jumbles that reminded 
Gillian of the Junction; there were shining black collars 
with silver or brass hames for carthorses, and brown har- 


204 


Seven for a Secret 


ness for the ponies of farmers’ wives, and reins and riding- 
whips and spurs; even the furniture shop was a whale, 
and its Jonah was a lady’s antique dressing-table inlaid 
with shells on a green ground, with a mirror and little 
brackets. 

“Oh! Look’s that!” cried Gillian. 

“You like that, do you?” 

“Ah!” 

“It’s yours.” 

“Oh, Mr. Elmer! You’ve given me too much! Be¬ 
sides it’s too big for my room.” 

“Change your room.” 

“They’re all little in our house!” 

“Change your house.” 

Gillian’s simple yet subtle mind was much disturbed. 
Did he mean this to be a proposal or did he not? She 
changed the subject. 

“Oh! Look’s that trestle with lemonade and beer. I 
be so thirsty.” 

They pulled up and had some refreshment, served by 
an ancient dame in a white cap and check apron and 
fringed shawl, who smiled at everything they said and 
murmured: “You’re welcome! You’re welcome!” but all 
the while gazed at them gravely over her spectacles, as if 
she were reserving her judgment. As if, thought Gillian, 
she was made up of two people, one merry and one strict, 
and they never agreed. 

Elmer had a striped blue and white mug of frothing 
ale, and they continued on their way in company with other 
gigs and late arrivals for the Fair ground in the shape of 
a drove of sheep and a great mud-bespattered sow with 
eight pale pink, silky piglets. 

They drove into the yard of the inn, and Elmer sent 
Gillian to inquire what time the Farmers’ Ordinary was, 
and if they might sit down to the. first table. Then he 
unharnessed the cob and led him into the great stable where 


Briar Roses 


205 


only a faint green light came in from a high, ivy-covered 
window, and where the silence was full of the rustlings 
of hay being pulled down from cratches, and stamping 
and pawings of shod hoofs on the stone floor, and the deep 
breathing and sighing of horses. Elmer tied up the cob, 
rubbed him down, pulled a pair of pincers out of his 
pocket, took the cob’s near forefoot between his knees and 
wrenched off the shoe. Then he went out, shut the stable 
door, threw the horse-shoe onto the mixen, and joined 
Gillian in the hall where she was talking to the landlady. 
The lady of the inn was a person of so much self-respect 
that it was impossible to imagine her in any situation that 
was not supremely dignified. To think of her taking a 
bath was sheer irreverence. To imagine her being rocked 
in her cradle, being born, was impossible. If she could 
not exist without being born then she did not exist. And 
she would never die, because it was impossible to imagine 
her laid low, unstarched, and without the slight flush of 
conscious rectitude. Her right hand lay on an oak table 
on which were a row of bedroom candlesticks with very 
white candles, and the impression was given that these 
candles were the landlady’s Vigilance Committee, virginal 
and austere, who would see that nothing but what was 
absolutely correct went on in the mahogany-furnished and 
very highly-polished bedrooms. 

There were no rugs or carpets in the hall, or the smok¬ 
ing room, or the dining room. By the end of the day of 
the Fair the reason for this became apparent. A thick 
layer of straw and farmyard manure covered the floors in 
true Arthurian manner. For it is obviously impossible, 
when in the throes of bargaining or when meeting a rival 
from across the border (border feuds are by no means 
dead), to remember the mat and the scraper. The Fair 
ground lay at the back of the inn, the street lay in front, 
and by the end of the day it was not easy, by simply look¬ 
ing down, to tell where you were. The Farmers’ Or- 


206 


Seven for a Secret 


dinary was already in progress, so Elmer and Gillian went 
into the dining room and found two seats at one end of 
the long table. 

It was a huge repast. People such as Isaiah, riding and 
driving in all weathers, wrestling with great beasts, having 
huge thews and sinews to keep up, take a great deal of 
feeding. The landlady was aware of it. Her sirloins 
were the largest, the juiciest, the fleshiest in the town. 
Her fowls were heavy-weights and went in couples, her 
tarts were each the sepulchre of a whole tree of goose¬ 
berries. Only on this day they were bottled—bottled last 
year with rectitude and competence, and made into tarts 
yesterday in the same atmosphere, so that each gooseberry 
seemed to swell and bristle with acidulated righteousness. 
Everything, from the baskets of bread to the lakes of 
sauce and gravy, in old-fashioned tureens, was generous 
and hospitable. There was a mingled scent of underdone 
meat, pepper, hair oil, hot fruit, mezereon (with which 
the table was decorated) and manure. There were a great 
many farmers, and a few farmers’ wives. There were 
plenty of wild and rugged faces, faces used to fronting 
the eternal grandeur of the hills, faces becalmed from long 
gazing into the brown waters of mountain pools. There 
were a few beautiful faces. Ruddy complexions prevailed, 
and the eyes of the company were mostly the dark and 
brooding ones of border-Welsh or the rather choleric blue 
ones of border-English. The women looked at Gillian 
kindly. She was obviously out for the day with her lover 
—either just married, or just going to be, they opined as 
they glanced at Elmer’s face. It would have been difficult 
to say, as they consumed their large platefuls with their 
splendid teeth, whether they knew that they were the back¬ 
bone of England. But they were conscious, as they took 
their well-earned holiday, which was only business in a 
new dress, of the wide ploughed acres, the well-got hay, 
the snug corn-ricks and pruned orchards, the clean floors 
and the cradles full of babies at home. They liked strong 


Briar Roses 207 

food, broad jokes, primitive justice, safe politics and solid 
religion. 

Elmer whispered to Gillian that it was like a wedding 
breakfast. 

Nobody knew Gillian. Isaiah had steadfastly refused to 
bring her to fairs, and, on those rare occasions when he 
took her to Weeping Cross, he had not taken her to the 
“Drover’s Arms” but to a small, demure tea-shop further 
up the street. They knew Elmer by sight, and supposed 
she was his wife or his betrothed. 

Dinner over, they went out to the Fair, where the damp 
soil sent up a sweet scent in the sunshine, and the fragrant 
breath of cattle, the hot woolly smell of sheep, the foetid 
panting of dogs, mingled with tar, oil from the merry- 
go-round, corduroy, horses, leather, and the ever-present 
manure, made one great bouquet sweetened by the fresh, 
eager country air. 

A man was sticking bills on the smooth tight bodies of 
the pigs. He slapped a wet brush on to their sides, clapped 
down the bill, smoothed it and passed on, leaving the 
animal self-conscious and puzzled. The sale began, but 
Elmer forgot his cow. They went on the merry-go-round. 
They saw the fat woman. They had their fortunes told. 
Johnson’s clan was here, but Johnson himself never came 
to fairs now. They shied at cocoanuts; they patronised 
a thimble-rigger. They watched the young men putting 
the weight, and Elmer tried his hand and did very well. 
At that, Gillian completely shelved Robert for the day. 
She decided that she was in love with Elmer. As they 
stood with the crowd and watched two heavyweight police¬ 
men boxing, she saw Elmer as the winner and Robert as 
the loser. 

The auctioneer was making the walls of the houses 
ring with his voice. 

“Now, ladies and gentlemen, I’m here to sell ’em! 
They’re here to be sooold. Now’s your chance! Take it 
or leave it! I tell you this”—(he lowered his voice to a 


208 


Seven for a Secret 


penetrating whisper)—“it’ll never happen again! Lose 
your chance now—you won’t get it again! I’m here to 
sell ’em. Not next week! Not to-morrow! Now!” 

“Now!” To Elmer his raving was as the voice of a 
prophet, prophesying smooth things. He smiled to think 
how well he had made his plans. 

He decided not to tell her about the shoe until just as 
they were preparing to start for home. Meanwhile he 
suggested that they should go to the dance which was 
always held in a large room in the town on the night of 
the May Fair. And while Gillian tidied her hair and 
borrowed a blouse from the landlady’s friendly daughter 
for the festive occasion, Elmer took the opportunity of 
bespeaking the room. 

“Juliana and I,” said he, “like a bit of a dance. Maybe 
the time will fly. We’d best stop the night over.” 

“What’s she done with her ring?” enquired the lady 
with a lynx look. 

“Left it on the sink when she was washing up,” said 
Elmer, and oil was poured upon the waters. 

At Dysgwlfas, Johnson had passed the inn, had seen in 
the distance a girl gathering sticks in the gyland, and had 
gone on. Robert had finished his hedge and had his sup¬ 
per; Isaiah sat in his parlour. All the creatures of the 
farm, furred and feathered, had gone to sleep. 

At the “Mermaid’s Rest” Fringal had settled his de¬ 
pleted live stock and had demanded his supper—beer and 
bread and cheese—which Rwth brought to him, afterwards 
going up the shallow creaking stairs to her attic under the 
gable, where she took the pins from her thick, lustreless 
hair, washed her face, put on her unbleached calico night¬ 
dress and knelt down. But the rite she was absorbed in 
was not that of prayer. Rather it might be called ecstasy. 
On the bed she had spread out a large red cotton hand¬ 
kerchief of Robert’s which he had dropped when helping 
with the move. She had washed it, ironed it, folded it 
with sprigs of southernwood and laid it in a drawer. 


Briar Roses 


209 


Every night she took it out and laid her face upon it, 
kneeling by the bed. Her dark eyelashes lay on cheeks 
flushed with a passion as spiritual and intense as it was 
unconscious. 

She looked almost beautiful (she could never be pretty 
or “nice-looking,” but just ugly or beautiful) as she knelt 
so, shaken and flushed with love that was anguish because 
it had no relief. She could not even speak his name. She 
could only, with a tenderness that ravaged her face, and 
yet glorified it, press her cheek hard upon the scarlet cotton 
decorated with white horse-shoes which Mr. Makepeace 
thought so delightful a pattern, and which Rwth regarded 
as a mystic regards his altar draperies—as something that 
had known the sacred presence of the God of Love. 

For to Rwth, who knew nothing of either God or her 
fellows—except the harsh things she had observed from 
watching Elmer and Fringal—Robert had become as a 
God—to sit and look at him was heaven. To hear his 
voice was health and joy. To suffer for him—that was, 
all unknown to herself, the ultimate purpose of her life. 
Once he had come to the inn with a long red briar-scratch 
on his cheek, and had chanced to say that the old dog-roses 
by the rick-yard wanted lopping, only he’d have to wait 
till he got some new hedging gloves. 

Next morning, mysteriously, uncannily, the dog-rose 
briars were neatly cut and the cut branches burnt in a little 
bonfire outside the gate. And had any one at the “Mer¬ 
maid” observed anything about Rwth they would have 
seen that her hands were a mass of wounds, and they would 
have seen, as she plunged them into the bucket of soda and 
water to scrub the floor, the smile on her sad face, up¬ 
lifted, ecstatic as that of a martyred saint. 


chapter xxii : Weeping Cross 

I NTO the large upper room throbbing with sound went 
Gillian and Elmer. And there they danced with the 
rest, oblivious of heavy country boots and the stifling air, 
until ten o’clock, when some of the men were drunk and 
some of the women a good deal dishevelled. Now Gillian 
had given her solemn word to be home at ten. So, when 
the leisured silver chime crept out from the church spire 
into the dark blue night, she judged it time to go home. 
They walked down the narrow street with its cobbled pave¬ 
ments, where the shadows of the gables and chimneys on 
one side touched the doorsteps on the other side. 

In the inky shade of a yew tree Elmer suddenly snatched 
Gillian and kissed her, holding her close against him so 
that he could feel the crushed softness of her breast. It 
was by no means the first kiss of passion, but it was the 
first nearness of their bodies, and it terrified and intoxi¬ 
cated Gillian. She was wax in his hands after that, pris¬ 
oner not only to the sudden physical love that his passion 
awoke, but to her own vitality and to unassuaged but com¬ 
pletely awakened curiosity. With something between rev¬ 
erence and ferocity he set both hands on her shoulders and 
slipped the loose round blouse and the bodice beneath down 
to her elbows so that she gleamed palely in the darkness. 
Then, as she pleaded and struggled, he kissed each shoulder 
and slipped her blouse on again. 

With his arm about her they came to the inn. Every 
one was asleep, except the daughter who had been to the 
dance, and whose candle still burnt in an attic. The great 
hollow hall, still carpetless, was all in darkness. Only a 
faint distillation of moonlight from an upper window 
showed the large curve of the stone staircase, unenclosed 
210 


211 


Weeping Cross 

and baronial, sweeping up to the railed gallery above the 
hall—which gallery served as the landing. It was like a 
picture of a mediaeval inn, only there the open courtyard 
took the place of the hall. On the table stood only one 
vestal candlestick, and beside it a little placard with the 
number of the room assigned to Elmer and a request that 
he would fasten the bolt. 

“The cob cast a shoe,” he said. “I saw we couldn’t go 
home. We’ll be bound to stop the night over.” 

In Gillian’s mind adventure struggled with fear of her 
father. Still, the adventure was now, the anger to-morrow. 

“A’ right,” she said. 

“There’s only one room—my dear.” 

In the sifting moonlight brilliant eye met brilliant eye. 
A vitality greater than their own rushed through their 
veins and pounded in their breasts. They could no more 
help themselves than slaves bound for sacrifice on Druidical 
altars. They were bound for sacrifice on an altar older 
than mythology: the altar of one who reigns in fold and 
field, in town and village, in the castle and the hut, who 
is merciless and arrogant; at once lovely and hideous; who 
wears the garb of every creed and sect, but belongs to 
none; who hates virginity; who will be worshipped as long 
as there remain in the world maids and men; but whose 
worship is mysterious as the forest, and whose name is 
unacclaimed of any worshipper—for her name is unknown. 
She has lust in her treasury as well as love; yet, because 
of her deathless, keen, miraculous vitality, she is clean. 
And such is her witchery that those who have lived and 
loved without having known her feel cheated. But those 
who die in her arms are content as if they already lived in 
Paradise. 

Elmer and Gillian looked on each other as the clear¬ 
eyed deer in the forest look—thrilled, yet loveless. Thrilled 
in every nerve, trembling under the hand of the merciless 
one, they stood. And white, virginal, the landlady’s unlit 
candle stood. It was to remain unlit. Suddenly Elmer 


212 


Seven for a Secret 


snatched the number of the room, swept Gillian into his 
arms, and went up the shallow stairs as if he had tasted 
the elixir of immortal youth. He had no remembrance 
of yesterday, no thought of to-morrow. An air, eager 
and sweet and maddening as the wild air of early morning 
on a mountain, blew about him—the same that ruffled 
the hair of Antony in the arms of Cleopatra, of the lovers 
of Thais, of Paris, and Tristan and many long-forgotten 
in desert and in forest. 

Gillian lay still in his arms, brown lashes on flushed 
cheeks, passive in a spell she could not break, gripped by 
a sudden agony of desire. Her heart raced in the silence 
like a doe pursued through a dark forest. That it was 
Robert to whom she desired to give herself, she did not 
remember. 

But through the long night, as she lay in the arms of 
Elmer, faint and weeping, ecstatic, afraid, she would see 
at intervals against the lightening grey of the window 
Robert’s deep-set eyes, full of anger; Robert’s curving 
mouth, set in wrath. Robert was awake, she knew, awake 
at the Gwlfas, thinking of her. He was angry because 
he was robbed. Was it fair that he should be angry at 
losing what he had not asked for? She was bitter at the 
thought of it. As the lines of light at the sides of the blind 
became golden and she knew that morning had come and 
that she must go back and face Robert, she had the 
lethargic feeling of those who wake on a day of expected 
bitterness. And when Ralph woke from a short and rest¬ 
less sleep and took her in his arms again, she was angry 
and ashamed and scornful. So this was all that lay behind 
the locked and guarded door that the matrons kept so care¬ 
fully! This was the secret she had given her maidenhood 
to discover! No, this was not all. There was no love in 
it, and so it was a lamp unlit. If Robert had awakened 
by her side- 

At the thought floods of shame overwhelmed her; she 
lay and sobbed. It was useless for Elmer to kiss her bare 


213 


Weeping Cross 

shoulders, to let his hands stray up and down her smooth 
body. The more he caressed her the more she cried. With 
the wisdom of awakened sex she knew that she loved 
Robert, that she adored him, because he was Robert, that 
she would rather have his anger than all the gifts and 
kisses of Elmer. 

So, as day strode over the purple-shadowed moor and 
looked upon the sleepless, haggard face of Robert Rideout 
in his attic, Gillian lay and cried as many another has 
cried—because she had just found out that she had awak¬ 
ened by the side of the wrong man. 

She supposed she would have to marry Elmer now, and 
Robert would never speak to her, and perhaps he would 
marry some one else. 

“If he do, ,, she said to herself with sudden rage, “I’ll 
kill her and myself as well!” 

As if in reminder of the steadfast commonplace that, 
like Juliet’s nurse, is always with us whether we laugh 
or cry, there was a knock and an uplifted voice without, 
announcing breakfast. 

The carpet was being put down in the hall as they went 
into the dining-room. The Fair was over till another 
year. Then once more the carpets would be rolled up, 
other lovers would dance in the upper room, and lie in the 
antique bedrooms. Other candles would watch over them 
or be ignored. Once more, then, the great joints would 
sizzle in the oven, the tarts and pies be made, the casks 
of home-brewed broached, the sheep go by through dust 
or mud with a leafy rustling, the bargains be driven, the 
purchases made. But now the Fair was over. The shops 
had withdrawn within their windows; the hobby-horses 
were packed on their waggon; Johnson’s clan had set out 
for the mountains, not to return until the autumn; the 
little old woman with the striped blue and white mugs and 
the spectacles, who was half merry and half strict, had 
withdrawn into mystery for another year. And every¬ 
thing was the same as it had been the day before yester- 


214 


Seven for a Secret 


day. Only Gillian Love kin had awakened beside the 
wrong man. And what, in the sum of things, did Gillian 
Lovekin matter? 

Southward, across the moor, two men were driving, and 
to this question they might both have answered: “What 
dun Gillian matter? Gillian Lovekin’s all the world to 
me! 

But as they drove with dogged faces not a word did 
they say. Isaiah flogged the mare, and the purple moor 
sprang to meet them, the far hills ran towards them, tree 
after tree leapt on them. The steeple of Weeping Cross 
came to them discreetly, but very fast. 

Robert, sitting with his arms folded, without a hat 
(having forgotten it), was glad of the speed. Though he 
knew what they would And, he was glad to be going to 
find it soon. It was better to know the worst. Especially 
was it necessary to know whether this had happened with 
Gillian’s consent or not: because, if not, he was going to 
kill Elmer, and he would rather kill him while he was 
angry. He hated killing things. He knew exactly how 
he would do it—choking the life out of the man with his 
powerful hands. His brown hair lifted in the wind; his 
brow was lined beneath it; his eyes weary. It is un¬ 
pleasant for a man not to know if he is to be hanged or 
not, and Robert did not know. 

So he was almost absent-minded when Isaiah, pointing 
with his whip to some winter wheat, said: “’Ealthy!” 
And he was intensely glad when the long high street 
closed up like a telescope before the mare’s reckless canter. 
They pulled up with a slide before the “Drover’s Arms,” 
and Isaiah went in. He stood in the dining-room door. 

“Ha!” fie said. 

The culprits said nothing. Isaiah pointed to the door. 

“Leave me and Elmer to talk,” said he. 

Gillian went into the hall. 

“Gillian!” said Robert softly. 

So Robert was here! This was cruel. She trembled 


215 


Weeping Cross 

and was white as the landlady’s newly-stoned doorstep. 
She stood shrinking against the wall and did not answer. 

“Gillian!” 

Oh, that kind voice! Oh, that voice so full of tender¬ 
ness and strength! It drew her as the shepherd’s voice 
the sheep—as cooing dove draws dove—as the deep mur¬ 
mur of the sea draws the sailor. 

“Gillian!” 

Across the hall, down the six white steps, over the cob¬ 
bles, it drew her. She stood beside the cart. She laid her 
small hand as if for comfort on the mare’s panting, shin¬ 
ing flank. 

Robert was looking at her. He was going to make her 
look at him. Oh, grief! Oh, bitter pain! 

Slowly she lifted her face, her eyes. There he was— 
Robert, the man she loved. With shoulders a little stoop¬ 
ing, with hand quiet on the reins, with mouth for once 
grim and forbidding, with deep-set eyes gazing, probing, 
seeing through and through her very being. Love met 
love. Love forsworn and deserted met love the wanderer, 
the forlorn, all dim with tears. 

He had seen all. He knew of the kisses, of the naked 
shoulders, the marriage of loveless bodies, the shame. 

With a cry of anguish she covered her face and turned 
to run away. 

“Nay, Gillian. You mun answer first.” 

Obediently she waited. 

“Did Elmer make ye stay?” 

There was a long silence. Little breezes lifted and 
sank in the half-unfurled leaves of the chestnut tree in 
the garden of the “Drover’s Arms.” In its top bough a 
blackbird sang musingly. It was as though he passed the 
whole of life through the crucible of his song and turned 
it to sweetness. The drone of voices came through the 
window. The mare stirred and sighed. From far away 
came the rumble of the receding gipsy waggons. The ivy 
lisped upon the house. Earth and air seemed to be waiting 


216 


Seven for a Secret 


for a verdict. And with the swift intuition of love Gil¬ 
lian saw Robert’s purpose. If she said Elmer had made 
her stay, she would be uttering the death sentence of both 
men. If she said she wished to stay—what? Only that 
for ever and ever Robert would think she loved Elmer, 
would never speak to her or look at her. She would be 
married to Elmer. Even now, if she told the truth, she 
might be saved. But that look! That dreadful look in 
Robert’s face! 

She gazed up at him as a seamaiden might look at a 
sailor lover when she heard the call of the Merman King 
and sank into deep water. One look, and all was over. 

“I stayed because I’d lief stay, Robert,” she said. “And 
you munna lay hand on him.” 

Then, with a gasping sob, she fled into the house. 


chapter xxiii: Isaiah Says “Ha!” 


“T’LL thank ye to tell me,” said Isaiah, as soon as Gil- 
A lian had gone, “what ye mean, lugging my girl off 
from whome, stopping the night over, making her a nay- 
word, and fetching me out o’ my bed and my farm all of 
a lantern-puff, with never so much as bite or sup? A 
pretty courant you’ve gid me!” 

The sentence rose to cumulative heights and the voice 
rose with it. 

Elmer poured out a cup of tea, buttered some toast, and 
took it across to him. Isaiah was speechless with rage. 

“No need to be so angered, Mr. Lovekin. I’ll make 
everything all right.” 

“Then it’s true?” 

“It’s true as the cob cast a shoe.” 

“Dunna I see the blacksmith’s pincers sticking out o’ 
your pocket this very minute? Oh, you black son of 
Satan!” 

“Now, Mr. Lovekin!” 

“Did ye or did ye not?” 

“I dunno what you mean.” 

“Liar!” 

Isaiah rang the bell. It sounded somewhere in the great 
empty house, and after a long time the landlady entered. 

“How many rooms did ye keep for this gentleman?” 
queried Isaiah. 

“One, sir. We hadn’t no more.” She was on fire with 
curiosity. 

“Oh! what a fool the fellow is!” thought Elmer. 

But Isaiah was no fool. 

“Then if I’d come after all, I’d ’a had to sleep on the 
floor! A pretty friend!” shouted Isaiah. 

217 


218 


Seven for a Secret 


“We didn’t know you thought of coming, Mr. Lovekin,. 
nor that you knew this gentleman,” soothed the landlady. 

“That’s the last arrand I’ll give to you, young man!” 
said Isaiah. “Thank you, ma’am, that was all I wanted 
to know.” 

“Any time, Mr. Lovekin, if you’d write,” she mur¬ 
mured, and withdrew, knowing nothing. 

“Would a thousand pound-?” began Elmer. 

“A thousand pound? For my girl’s good name? And 
you’ve got the impidence!” Isaiah was speechless with 
a spate of confused words that struggled for utterance. 

“Two thousand?” 

“Now, silence! Husht! You dunna want to fight an 
old man, do ye? Then listen what I’ll tell ye. There’s 
no cure for this but banns up next Sunday as ever is. And 
no more to be said.” 

“But-” 

“It’s no use if ting and anding. I’ll tell ye what’ll come 
to pass if you marry my girl—and if you dunna. Marry 
her. I’ll settle ten thousand on her. The farm she’ll 
have when I go. And there’ll be a tidy bit o’ money, all 
willed to her and you. I’ll learn you all I know. I’ll 
make ye rich, respected, a churchwarden, if ye like; a 
magistrate if ye like. You can join the Silverton Hunt 
if ye like. If you want a better house I’ll build one. If 
you want a Letter nag, I’ll buy one.” 

“It isn’t that, Mr. Lovekin. I don’t need bribery.” 

“Well, what in God’s name is it, then?” 

“I—I just can’t, Mr. Lovekin.” 

“You just can’t! Dear to goodness! That Lovekin 
of the Gwlfas should come to this! Down on his knee¬ 
caps pleading with a young wastrel to marry his girl. Now 
I’ll tell ye what’ll come to pass if you dunna.” 

He stood up, his silver hair and beard shining against 
the dark high mantelpiece, with its carving of a stag hunt. 
He spoke quite softly, even persuasively. 

“If you dunna,” he said, “I’ll make you a byword. 




219 


Isaiah Says “Ha!” 

Til make you like one of them men as was excommuni¬ 
cated in the old times. I’ll make you an Esau among your 
kind. I’ll drain yer money from ye, shilling by shilling, 
farden by farden. I’ll spoil yer credit. I’ll set the police 
on ye. I’ll set all men agen ye. Yer ricks ’ll ketch fire, 
and none’ll know why nor how. Yer beasts’ll sicken, and 
none’ll come to cure ’em. I’ll outbid ye at fairs. And 
when you’ve ought to sell I’ll cheapen the market. I’ll 
set the gipsies on ye-” 

Elmer visibly started. 

“If ye leave the place—I’ll foller. It’ll be all to do 
over agen, but I’ve a-many years afore me yet and a-plenty 
of money. Wherever ye go Isaiah Lovekin’ll be with ye. 
And which d’ye think folk’ll believe—a young wastrel 
like you or an old ancient white-’eaded man as is re¬ 
spected? And when I’ve made ye the laugh and the nay- 
word of every fair and every public, and yer bones stand 
out, I shanna ha’ done with ye. No. When you’re broke” 
—he snatched the poker in his great hands, snapped it and 
flung it into the fender—“like that —then I wunna kill 
ye. You’ll want to die, but you shanna. You shall go 
to the Asylum. You shall be drove along the roads like 
a silly sheep, and my girl shall come in a kerridge and 
laugh to see ye. You wunna be mad, but I’ll make every 
man think you’re mad, until you be—until you slaver like 
a mad dog and none to pity.” 

Suddenly Isaiah sat down, exhausted by his hatred. 

“That’s what Isaiah Lovekin’ll do to the man as made 
his girl a nay-word,” he said. “Choose.” 

Elmer, pale beneath the tan, experienced the most ap¬ 
palling moment of his life so far. He could not marry 
the girl, and Fringal knew he could not. Yet he must. 
He was quite aware that Isaiah could do exactly what he 
said. A man with so tremendous a reputation, of an old, 
known family, of almost fabulous wealth—for Dysgwlfas 
measures wealth by its own standards—revered to idolatry, 
could smash him as easily as he could smash a wasp on 



220 


Seven for a Secret 


the window. Or he could make him. It was an instance 
of the reversal of reward and punishment. If he did 
right he would not only lose Gillian, but spend his life in 
hell and end in madness. If he did wrong, he would have 
not only everything he had ever wanted, but Gillian as 
well. If he did wrong he would never be found out. 
There was only Fringal, and Fringal was open to bribes. 
Also Fringal was old. Rwth was dumb. Providence was 
kind. And Isaiah waited. 

The light shone full on Elmer and revealed in his face 
the marks of his struggle. Isaiah was puzzled. Here was 
a young man with no ties, very much in love with Gillian, 
and he had offered him not only Gillian, but all he had 
as well. What could be the matter? What was it? The 
arrogance of youth overcame Isaiah. He could have wept. 

“She’s as white as snow!” he said. 

“I know—I know.” 

“And if it inna enough, I could put my money out 
better, I make no doubt, so it ’ud bring in more.” 

This was intolerable. After last night Ralph wanted to 
fling himself and all that he had at Gillian’s feet. And 
here was this terrible old man bargaining and offering him 
this and that. 

“It’s enough and more than enough,” he said. “I want 
no better than to marry your girl and work for ’er.” 

“You do?” Isaiah was almost in tears from the great 
shock of joy. “You do? Then what in hell-” 

“It was just—I thought she was in love with Rideout.” 

“Rideout! Dear to goodness, man, d’ye think Miss 
Lovekin of the Gwlfas is going to marry a barn-door 
savage? She’d scorn to let the fellow kiss her feet.” 

Flushed and triumphant, remembering his own kisses, 
Elmer went across to the old man, holding out his 
hand. 

“Sir!” he said, “will ye take it? I’ll swear to do my 
best for Gillian, the prettiest girl in the country.” 

Isaiah put his great paw into the outstretched hand. 



Isaiah Says “Ha!” 221 

“Now you’re talking sense, my lad!” said he. “Then 
you’ll be axed in church Sunday?” 

“Ah.” 

“Likely you’ll want to drive Gillian back in your gig, 
eh?” Isaiah was full of laughter now. 

“Thank you kindly, Mr. Lovekin.” 

“And seeing as nobody knows the girl in Weeping 
Cross, nobody’ll be any the wiser if you keep away for 
a bit. They wunna put two and two together, being busy¬ 
like. And now I’ll be going. Will ye send Gillian to 
me?” 

Gillian came, pale and tearful. 

“Now, my dear,” said Isaiah, “I shanna chide ye. 
That’s the mother’s place if she was in life, poor soul. I 
say nought. But here’s fifty pound to go on with for 
ribbons and rubbitch, and plenty more where that came 
from. And the banns’ll be up Sunday.” 

“Oh, Father!” 

“It’s no manner use saying, ‘Oh, Father!’ You’ve 
stopped the night over with the man. You best know 
why. No argling, now. Buy what ye like. Ask for as 
much as ye like. But you’ve got to be Mrs. Elmer Monday 
three weeks.” 

“Oh, I canna—I canna!” 

“You know better. You dunna want a barley-child, 
do ye?” * 

“Father, I dunna love him.” 

“Then what for did ye lose yer maiden’ead, you nasty 
baigle?” Isaiah turned to the door. “With yer leave or 
without it,” said he. “So ye’d better put a good face on 
it and buy some fal-lals. And to-morrow I’ll take ye to 
Silverton to buy the bride cake and the wedding dress: but 
no more hiver-hover. See?” 

* Barley-child—a child born within a few months of marriage, 
in the time that elapses between the sowing and the harvest of 
barley. 


222 


Seven for a Secret 


Gillian did see. She saw where curiosity and youth and 
vitality had brought her, and she stood like a drooping 
flower, while Isaiah got into the trap and drove away, 
Elmer having promised to follow very shortly. Faintly, 
when he came in and snatched her into his arms; when 
he kissed her feet, her ankles, her knees, held her close 
against him by the waist and pressed back her head to kiss 
her beneath the chin till she felt as if her back would 
break—faintly and palely she suffered it. Robert had 
given her no glance as he drove away. Stern, remote, he 
had looked into the distance. She was the chattel of Ralph 
Elmer. She had no refuge. For three weeks she could 
stay at home, but after that he would take her to the inn, 
and nobody—not her father, nor her Aunt Fanteague, nor 
the Rector, nor Robert—would stir a finger to help her. 
And, as Elmer helped her into the gig and drove away, 
whistling as they went along the fresh morning roads, the 
bitterness of her soul could have been gauged by the fact 
that she wished she was back at Aunt Fanteague’s, yes, 
even with Mr. Gentle for her only lover, and Aunt Emily 
talking for ever of her dreams of angels. 

“Well,” remarked Elmer, with the crassness of self- 
absorbed happiness, “well, my dear, it’s all over, and no¬ 
body any the worse. Everything all right, the banns up, 
and you at the ‘Mermaid* afore we know where we are.” 
He stifled a foreboding. 

All right, was it? Gillian listened in silence. For, ah! 
had not the man she wanted to be with driven off without 
her? Wasn’t she in the wrong gig? Hadn’t she awak¬ 
ened beside the wrong man? 

She wondered if Aunt Emily had felt, when death 
robbed her of Mr. Gentle, the same as she herself felt 
when life stole from her Robert Rideout. She even began 
to wonder if the slatey drake minded when she rent its life 
and its feathers away, if the rabbits minded when she 
bought music with their lives. She understood why Rob¬ 
ert had told her to make the thorny cross. She felt as if 


223 


Isaiah Says “Ha!” 

she was going to make one for the rest of her life. In 
fact, Gillian Lovekin began to grow up, began to grow 
wiser, for she began to suffer. And to suffer is to be sen¬ 
sitised to the cosmos and to everything within it, from a 
grain of dust to the soul of a poet. 


chapter xxiv: A Hank of Faery Wool 

D URING the next three weeks Gillian entrenched 
herself behind mountains of clothes, which Isaiah 
rejoiced to see her buy, and she would have nothing to say 
to Elmer. She had deferred her wedding to the last pos¬ 
sible day allowed by her father—the 25th of May. Isaiah 
drove her to the Keep, to Silverton, to the Keep again, 
wrote cheques, sent off invitations, saw the Rector, had 
the farm smartened up for the wedding, mentioned Elmer 
as being more suitable than himself for the post of church¬ 
warden, and ordered a large consignment of champagne, 
which he told Robert to fetch on the first spare day. 
Whereupon Robert wrote a letter, and had a large packing- 
case to bring as well as the champagne. Even Mrs. Make¬ 
peace was won over by the sight of so much fine linen, and 
the immediate thought of baby linen which it brought to 
her mind. She flung herself into the preparations with all 
her might. 

At the inn Fringal and Rwth worked from morning 
till night, and Elmer went to and fro in a frenzy. Jona¬ 
than came back with tales of the great supper that was to 
be given free when the bride was brought home, and of 
the casks of ale and wine to be broached. 

“It’s to be hoped we’ll live to eat it and drink it,” he 
said; “there’s over a fortnit. A’most anything could come 
to pass in a fortnit. Why, the world could come to an 
end in that tuthree days if it ud pleased the Lord to plan 
it so from time everlasting.” 

“Well, my dear,” said his wife, and if He’d planned it 
so, it ud be best so. And you wouldna be werritting about 
a drop of liquor then.” 

“Well, but I do hope the Lord hanna planned it the 
224 


A Hank of Faery Wool 225 

like of that, Mother!” and he worried himself and every¬ 
body else so much about it that they could scarcely bear 
to hear the wedding mentioned at all. He gave so many 
instances of weddings that were never solemnised, and told 
so many stories about feasts that were never eaten, that 
Gillian built up a specious happiness upon his prophecies 
of disaster. 

She sat all day in the parlour, and as she had intuitively 
found it an anodyne to live on the surface, she did so. 
Her slim fingers lovingly caressed the fine linen, and tied 
and untied the pretty ribbons with which her beauty was 
to be clad when she gave herself to Elmer for ever. 
Though she knew he did not love her as she wanted to 
be loved, it was her nature to enjoy her power over him. 
She picked up the foamy garments one by one, and sighed. 
There came a day when the postman brought cardboard 
boxes, large and heavy, and behold! on her bed lay the 
wedding dress, with its misty moonlight look, and the veil 
and the wreath. Everything was to be done in the best 
manner, according to Isaiah’s decree, just as if she were 
a Squire’s daughter. 

“Oh, Robert!” breathed Gillian, and two tears fell upon 
the spotless beauty of the white-ribboned wedding night¬ 
dress. “Oh, Robert, Robert, my dear!” 

But not even Mrs. Makepeace, affectionate and inquisi¬ 
tive, not even Aunt Fanteague, with her piercing eye and 
her leading questions, found out about the two tears or 
what caused them. 

Though she must always keep a niche in her heart for 
Elmer, because he was the first man to initiate her into 
the meaning of passion, yet it was Robert’s glance, the 
touch of Robert’s hand, as he helped her into the trap 
or out of it that threw her into a faintness so sweet that 
she wished she could have died then and never awakened 
to the common day. Her step, which had always been 
haughty, faltered when Robert was near; her lashes swept 
her cheeks, her deliberate cool hands shook. And if, while 


226 


Seven for a Secret 


she spoke to Elmer at the gate, she heard Robert’s step, 
immediately she was an image carved out of snow. She 
was sitting by the parlour window one showery evening, 
and the early Gloire de Dijon roses were sending out great 
rushes of sweetness in the rainy warmth, when a slight, 
dark-clad figure came in at the wicket, and Rwth stood 
hesitatingly at the door. Gillian, with her new vision of 
sadness, ran to let her in, put the kettle on for tea, treated 
her not as her future servant, but as a friend. The lucent 
black eyes shone, Rwth’s whole face lit up with tenderness, 
with a mysterious sacrificial love. She had come to bring 
a wedding gift—a work basket woven of rushes, such as 
gipsies sell, at the making of which she was very clever. 
Her hands were deft at all kinds of work, and once she 
had learnt a thing she never forgot it. She proffered the 
basket with a little deprecating smile, and Gillian went into 
raptures over it, stowed away her thimble and scissors in 
it, and made much of Rwth. But this was not all. From 
her pocket Rwth drew out a photograph of Elmer. She 
held it in her hands, nodded, showed it, clasped it again, 
as if to say: “It is mine.” 

Then she got up, placed it in Gillian’s hands, looking 
questioningly in her face, closed them over it and made 
a motion of discarding it, of utter renunciation. Then she 
once more looked questioningly at Gillian, who was puz¬ 
zled, received the photograph very coolly and offered it to 
her again. Rwth took it, but not as if she wanted it. 
They continued their tea, and Gillian picked a bunch of 
roses for Rwth, who went away smiling. 

Soon after she had gone, there was a sound of heavy 
wheels, and Robert stopped outside the wicket, standing 
in the waggon, calling for Jonathan to come and help 
him. Besides Isaiah’s packets and boxes there was the large 
packing case which they carried in, and which revealed, 
when they had opened it, a rosewood cottage piano. Jona¬ 
than departed, and Robert knelt down to pick up the 
straw. 


A Hank of Faery Wool 227 

“Bob!” said Gillian, ignoring the piano, “what for do 
you treat me as if I was a leper?” 

“I dunna. If there’s any leper, it’s me. And the 
leprosy’s called poverty, and it’s the hot-bed of pride.” 

“Speak kind, Robert!” 

“I never did no other.” 

“Who’s the little piano from, Robert?” 

“How should I know? Be it my place to ask? What 
am I?” said Robert with great bitterness. 

“What are you? You’re Robert Rideout, and there 
inna your like the world over—for a sharp temper,” she 
hastily added. “And I’d thank you to look for the label, 
Bob, so’s I can tell who to write to.” 

Robert made a great show of looking for the label. But 
suddenly as he was kneeling there, Gillian came and stood 
close to him. 

“Now look at me, Bob!” she said. 

He lifted his clear dark eyes. 

She laid her hands lightly on his shoulders. 

“Now, Robert! It’s from you! You canna say no to 
it! Look at me and say no! I dare you!” 

In the aching silence he looked at her, and the truth 
was plain to see, in his eyes, in the slow red that came 
under the tan. 

“Why did ye think—it was from me?” he whispered. 

“Because nobody else in all the world ’ud think of it, 
Robert. And I canna thank you, Robert!” 

“I dunna want thanks.” 

“Robert! You’ve spent every penny you’ve saved ever 
since you were twelve!” 

Suddenly she stooped, and very lightly and softly kissed 
him on the brow. He sprang to his feet and said 
hoarsely: 

“You’re very kindly welcome—Mrs. Elmer!” and stag¬ 
gered to the door. 

And Gillian with her hands clasping the polished wood 
of the piano, sobbed until it grew dark, and her father 


228 


Seven for a Secret 


came in, and she ran away to wash her face that he might 
not see the traces of tears. 

“And that’s got to last for all our lives!” she said to 
herself. “It’s got to last a hundred thousand years!” 

Robert, quite mazed with the sweetness of it, said to 
himself: “She did it for fun: she dunna care for me. She 
dunna know as I care for her. She canna know,” he 
added simply, “because I hanna said a word. Nor yet I 
hanna showed her the pennillions and the poetry. She did 
it because she’s a little flirt and she wanted to see what 
I’d say.” 

Oh, sad and cruel jest of life, that a gay laugh, a smile 
of lip or eye can deceive even a lover, when the heart is 
dying within; that, when we are making our last frantic 
attempt to grasp that which is our very life, we are thought 
to be in jest—as one might say to the wretched fish gasping 
and leaping on the hook, dying for water—“Ha! What 
a merry dance you are giving us! You are the best of 
jesters, fish!” 

It was not until the very eve of her wedding that she 
ventured to speak to Robert again. She had played on 
his piano, and sung to it, and she had sometimes heard 
his steps pause a moment on the path outside. But they 
had neither of them said anything, until this evening when 
they met by chance in the rickyard, when Gillian was gath¬ 
ering butter-leaves from the old sycamore tree so that she 
could pack the butter for market before the wedding day. 

It was a calm and delicious evening, laced with a hun¬ 
dred scents—may and buttercups, appleblossom and chest¬ 
nut, lilac and the dry sweetness of hay. 

“Robert!” said Gillian. “Oh, Robert!” 

He stopped by the orchard fence. 

“Robert, I love the piano. I wish there was anything 
as I could do to thank you-” 

Robert remembered Rwth and the writing lessons. 

“There’s something you can do for somebody else, and 



A Hank of Faery Wool 229 

yet it’ll be for me,” said he. “Will you learn Rwth of 
the ‘Mermaid’ to write, Gillian?” 

Gillian was amazed. 

“But why ever?” 

“Because I ask you to. There’s a reason for why, but 
I canna tell you. Learn her quick. I’ll buy the copy¬ 
books.” 

“But suppose she canna learn.” 

“She can. She’s right down clever with her Ungers. 
You see! But-” he hesitated. 

“Well?” 

“Well, you see, it’s the like of this. Mr. Elmer dunna 
much want Rwth to learn things.” 

“Oh!” 

“Would it be, like, agen your duty to keep it from 
him?” 

“No!” 

“A’right then. Thank you kindly.” 

“Robert!” 

Ah, how she adored his name! How she loved his 
mother and his cottage and his ploughman’s boots, his 
rough hands, the bit of grass he was twisting in his fingers, 
the cade lambs waiting for him in the orchard. Every 
day he caught those lambs in his hands. Every day their 
close stiff wool felt the caress of his fingers—and would. 
But she; she must be content with a little clasp of the 
fingers, and perhaps a word now and again, and the sound 
of his laugh or his step. And that was all. She held out 
her hand now. 

“Good-bye, Robert!” she said. 

And Robert knew that if he waited another moment he 
should simply pick her up and walk away—over the moor 
—over the hills—over the world’s rim. 

He put his hands on the fence and vaulted over. 

“Good-neet,” he said. “Good-neet, Gillian Lovekin— * 
and—bless you!” 

He was gone. 



230 Seven for a Secret 

In the cottage Jonathan still laboured over the mystery 
of the piano. 

“It bodes no good,” he said, “a present from a person 
unknown, to a bride. Now listen. A long while ago 
there was a lady, and she loved a lord. But a prince out 
of fairyland seed her one day picking red currants in the 
garden. And he said, ‘Her mouth be as red as the currants, 
I’ll have her for myself.’ So he takes and sends her a 
wedding present of a hank of white fairy wool for spin¬ 
ning. Now she was a very industrious lady, and though 
the wedding was nigh, she took and spun the wool. But 
when she’d spun it, the end went wafting out of the win¬ 
dow, and the more she spun the more went out, stretching 
along in the breeze. So when she’d finished it, she keeps 
the end as she’s got, and begins to wind it up on an ivory 
spool. For she says: ‘It’s blowing up for tempest, and 
the wool munna be rained on.’ But when she pulled, 
summat else pulled, quiet but very obstinate, and it pulled 
her acrost the room, out o’ window, into the garden and 
the lane, and away-to-go over the fields; and it lugged 
her right into fairyland, so the fairy got her after all.” 

What a strange faint clamour as of many distant bells 
woke in Robert’s mind at those four plain words: “Got 
her after all.” Did he? But then—he was a fairy. He 
was not just Bob o’ the Gwlfas, clad in corduroy and a 
patched coat, helpless in the grasp of circumstance. But 
was he helpless? Suppose that leaping suspicion about 
Rwth were correct? What then? Why, then, the man 
who stood between himself and Gillian Lovekin was in 
his hands. One word to Johnson. After so many years 
of grief, after such a tragedy, would Johnson forgive? 
Robert knew he would not. Maybe, if the more dazzling 
presence of Elmer were removed, Gillian would turn to 
him. And Johnson would reward him. Johnson was 
rich. Nobody seeing him would ever have believed it, but 
he was. Or he might make Elmer pay him for his silence 


231 


A Hank of Faery Wool 

—unless that would injure his friend. He might also lay 
the case before Elmer, demand the inn in return for let¬ 
ting him go, and wait to tell Johnson till Elmer was 
across the sea. But then Gillian would still be married 

—unless-. And her father would not allow her to 

live with him. Every avenue was shut. And above all, 
greater than all, was the fact (of which he was nearly 
sure) that Gillian loved Elmer. 

“I mun bide as I be,” he thought. “It’s wormwood 
in the mouth, but there’s nought else to do. I mun go 
childless to the grave, for take any other but Gillian, I 
never will. The cradle ’ll rock in Elmer’s kitchen. It 
wunna rock in mine.” 

“Well, Mother!” he said, as he got up to go to bed, 
“I’m off to Gruffydd Conwy’s to-morrow. I’ll take bite 
and sup with me if you’ve a mind.” 

“What?” cried Jonathan so loudly that the cat leapt 
right across the kitchen. “What? Not go to the wed¬ 
ding? Not go to the supper? Laws! Laws! What’s 
come to thy poor head? Why, man, there’ll be yer belly- 
full three times over! At Lovekin’s in the morning; agen 
at Lovekin’s for tea; and then at the ‘ Naked Wench’ for 
supper. Beef and mutton and good ale, and plenty of 
old tales—for there’s nought like a drop of beer to loosen 
the tales in the old men’s heads—out they come like birds 
from cages!” 

“Now, my dear!” Mrs. Makepeace stemmed the tide 
of words. “Now you leave Robert be. Robert dunna 
like old tales like you do. Robert likes the music. Every¬ 
body’s going to keep holiday in their own way. Why 
shouldna Robert keep it in his’n?” 

She gave Robert a shy little pat on the shoulder, and 
took out of Jonathan’s hand the knife which, in his sur¬ 
prise about Robert, he had forgotten, and which had 
pointed itself straight at his eye. 

At the “Mermaid’s Rest” the bridal chamber was ready, 



Seven for a Secret 


232 

sweet and clean as Rwth’s quick hands could make it. 
Its long, low window looked towards Dysgwlfas, and 
Gillian had been glad when she had seen it. For some¬ 
times in the early morning in the pasture that sloped up to 
the moor, when it was not misty, she would see a dark 
slim pencil on the bright green field. And that would be 
Robert. 

As Rwth smoothed the white sheet and shut the window 
for the night, and turned to go, she was sorry for Gillian. 
As she climbed the attic stairs she was glad for herself, 
glad with the wild intuitive joy of a bird. For no more 
would she have to come trembling down the attic stairs 
in the dark, and go to Elmer’s room. For ever she would 
be able now to go through the calm rite of her worship 
of Robert. 

The irony of things did not, of course, strike her—the 
strange irony of the fact that two women who loved with 
all their hearts and souls the man of Dysgwlfas Cottage, 
should be living with the man of the “Mermaid’s Rest.” 
But irony was never lost upon Fringal. He never missed 
anything, and the Sardonic Jester found in him the perfect 
audience. 

He sat on his bed in the dark, tired, but not too tired 
to laugh; he let the curious situation soak into his mind— 
every detail, every queer twist (and he knew more of the 
situation than anybody, even the protagonists). And then, 
in silence, because his master slept beneath, he laughed. 
He rocked with laughter. He slapped his thigh (still 
silently) and rocked again. And the old house seemed to 
listen in its silence, seemed to watch and wait, and to 
culminate in him. Beneath was Elmer, lying awake, in 
an anguish of physical desire. Close by was Rwth, kneel¬ 
ing in an ecstasy of spiritual love. Round the three, in 
the hush of night, the house wove minute sounds—the 
gnawing of a rat in an empty room; the rustle of a bat’s 
wings in the passage; the faint rasping of the feet of a 
daddy-long-legs, advancing upon Fringal with its extraor- 


A Hank of Faery Wool 233 

dinary ghoulish clownishness; the hoot of an owl in the 
unket place; and the everlasting whisper of the moor 
which changed into a roar in winter, but never died, and 
which was, even at its quietest, like the lisp of one destined 
to become a conqueror. 


chapter xxv: The Bride Comes Home 


HE wedding was precisely like all other well arranged 



1 weddings. Everything was as it should be. Every¬ 
one was punctual. Everything went smoothly as Severn 
in July. The Rector had a very white surplice and a very 
bright smile. The bride’s father was the very pattern of 
a father. The Bridegroom was presentable, and his long 
three weeks of waiting had given to his expression an 
eagerness which simulated real love very nicely. The 
ringers were refreshed with beer from the “Mermaid,” 
and they pulled the bell-ropes lustily. Aunt Fanteague 
had a new dress, so stiff that her own stiffness was as 
nothing. Aunt Emily, dosed with bromide for the occa¬ 
sion, and imbued with the idea that she and Mr. Gentle 
were going to be married to-morrow, looked very sweet in 
lavender. Jonathan had a flower in his buttonhole, and a 
story ready to burst from his lips the moment they were 
out of the Church. Mrs. Makepeace was in her best dress 
and tears. And the bride was “the very moral of a bride,” 
as the wife of the people’s warden said. “And if when 
you come to the altar, you come like her,” she remarked 
to her young daughter, “you’ll do well.” 

Whereat the daughter smiled satirically, for the young 
are desperately clear-sighted. Fringal was there in a con¬ 
trolled paroxysm. Afterwards, the breakfast was all a 
breakfast ought to be. Merriment ran high. For when 
Isaiah chose to jest, Olympus was shaken. He jested. 
Even the Rector jested. The wedding presents were 
viewed; the mystery of the piano was a mystery still. 
Elmer was seen to kiss his wife behind the dovecote, and 
as nobody knew that she had been very cross, everybody 
thought it very delightful. Jonathan and Fringal, in 


234 


The Bride Comes Home 235 

wonderful Sunday suits and cuffs of which they were as 
ashamed as if they were handcuffs, waited to the best of 
their ability. Fringal and the cold dishes on the sideboard 
had a good many quiet jokes. And Jonathan’s feud with 
inanimate matter reached an acute stage. For having been 
requested to remove the cake to a side-table for greater 
convenience in cutting it, he dropped it flat on the floor, 
and there was no need to cut any of the sugar, but only 
to gather up the fragments. 

As soon as they had digested dinner, if not before, they 
had tea. And when tea was over, Elmer’s patience was 
over too. 

“The cob, Fringal,” said he. 

“Sir-to-you!” said Fringal. And in a trice the cob and 
the gig were there, and Gillian was in, and Elmer was 
in, and Fringal leapt in like a chaffinch leaping at a tall 
dandelion, and they were off at full gallop. There stood 
the proud father at the door, with the Church to back him 
up. And Elmer waved his hat, and Fringal clung on for 
dear life and laughed till he cried, and the cob leapt over 
the stony road till the gig rocked, for he had had his share 
of the stinging rice, and he was exceedingly angry. 

And so the Bride was brought home. Then all the 
revellings began again. All the people who had not yet 
feasted (and a good many who had) took their fill. Some 
of them had, as they said, “clemmed all day to do it jus¬ 
tice.” The ringers came; the ploughmen and shepherds 
and their wives from far and near; the young man from 
Silverton who had taken photographs of everybody and 
everything. The oldest woman in the village came, and 
her children and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. 
The youngest baby in the village came in its mother’s 
arms, and howled very lustily. The ministers of two 
chapels, the butcher who drove round the country once a 
week, the postman, all Gillian’s schoolfellows, the young 
farmers who were Elmer’s friends, all came, and the stout 
village midwife with her mystic smile as though to say: 


Seven for a Secret 


236 

“My time will come.” They came and they stayed. They 
sang uproariously. They made broad jokes. They said 
all the things that are so sweet to lovers, and so bitter to 
the loveless. Last of all, when the May night grew dark 
and the indigo of the sky merged in the violet of the moor, 
came a stray gipsy woman of Johnson’s clan, detained at 
the Keep by the sickness of her baby and now benighted. 
And she said: 

“The flower’s plucked too soon. ... I hear the drip 
o’ tears. . . . There’s one in this place wunna see the year 
out. . . . There’s one over the mountains should be in 
this place. ... I hear a cradle rocking—but not in this 
house—not in this house!” 

As she said these words, Rwth rose and came towards 
her, looking at her strangely. The gipsy said a few words 
quickly, in the lingo of her people, but Rwth shook her 
head and showed by a gesture that she could not answer. 

The gipsy feasted with the rest and departed. Gradually 
the guests went their ways, and at last Rwth and Fringal 
finished washing-up the glasses and went to bed. The 
bride and bridegroom were alone. Then they too climbed 
the stairs, and Gillian ran to the window and saw a star 
hang above Dysgwlfas Farm, where the cottage was, and 
the orchard, with those lambs—blest above all creatures— 
who were handled by Robert every morning and every 
evening. She remembered Robert’s request, touched with 
some of the pathos of the requests of the dying, for she 
thought Robert could scarcely be more removed from her 
if she lay in her grave. 

“I must just go an’ speak to Rwth a minute,” she said. 

“To Rwth?” 

“Ah.” 

“Whatever for?” 

“Oh, men, men, men!” said Gillian in a very good 
imitation of the manner of the Squire’s wife. “You think 
there’s nought in the world but you!” 


The Bride Comes Home 237 

“Well, don’t be long.” 

She was gone, climbing the attic stairs softly, tapping 
softly at R/wth’s door. But Rwth was wrapt in worship. 
She did not hear. Gillian went in and saw a picture she 
never forgot. The casement was open and the Dysgwlfas 
star was in it. On the blue and white check quilt lay 
Robert’s handkerchief, and Rwth’s brown cheek lay caress¬ 
ingly upon it. 

“Rwth! Be you took bad?” 

Rwth sprang up defensively, crumpling the handker¬ 
chief into a ball. But fortunately Gillian had not no¬ 
ticed it. 

She shook her head to show nothing was wrong. 

“Saying your prayers, was you?” 

She nodded. If she had been able to read the Bible, 
she might have remembered the text: “Ye shall draw them 
with cords of a man, even with cords of love.” 

They looked at each other softly—the bride, still in her 
wedding-dress in the country manner, her bright colour 
and vivid grey eyes lighted into beauty by the mingled 
grief and triumph of the day; and the little handmaid, 
locked away from human intercourse, with her pale, swart 
face and strange luminous eyes, and her dignity of sorrow. 
The bright star, raying out into the blue night, shone on 
both, and shone also on Robert as he passed by, all un¬ 
known, wearily covered the distance between the inn and 
his home, and flung himself upon his bed. 

“Rwth, Robert asked me to learn you to write. Would 
you like it?” 

Would she? Ah! What a smile, with all rapture in it! 

“Robert wants you to learn quick. Can ye?” 

She nodded vigorously. 

“We’ll start to-morrow.” 

Another nod. 

“And, Rwth!” 

Rwth waited. 


238 


Seven for a Secret 


“He dunna want the Master nor Fringal to know. And 
I was thinking there inna no place safe from ’em but 
here, because my room-” 

She faltered. 

But Rwth looked complete comprehension. 

“So shall I come up here, after you’ve washed up 
dinner? You can take a bit of time off then. If he says 
anything I’ll say you’re sewing for me. Now mind you 
come to-morrow. I’ll come at one. You’ll ha’ done by 


then.” 


Suddenly, she did not know why, she bent forward and 
sealed the compact with a kiss. 

Then she returned to Elmer. Once more darkness and 
silence were upon the house. Once more Fringal laughed 
in his attic. The moor whispered. Time and space wove 
their strange tapestries across eternity. And at the cottage 
under the star Robert made a little song. 


“I heard a clary * in the wood j 
I went to see, and there she stood. 

The song- was like a charm o’ birds. 

I lost my heart, I lost my words. 

A roaring sea was in my ears} 

Her clary filled my eyes with tears. 

My soul was bantered down with grief, 
For she was like a tree in leaf 
And bright as calaminca/t* 

“I’d lief as I could make a bower 
Of briar roses all in flower, 

With scarlet rose mops set between 
And crimson thorns among the green. 

My naked hands with blood should run, 
To ease my pain. And when I’d done 
I’d closem her within my breast, 

For she’s my clary and my rest 
And bright as calaminca!” 


* Clary—A ringing song. 


f Calaminca—Red shale. 



CHAPTER XXVI: A.B.C. at the Sign of the 
Maiden 

S UMMER drooped warm wings over the moor. The 
blossom fell, the fruit set. The grass lengthened, 
grew silken, rippled, lay in brown and green confusion 
when the rain came, and arose softly and rippled again. 
Haying began. In the early mornings Gillian could see 
her father’s machine going round the big meadow, and she 
knew that Robert was driving it. The roses bloomed and 
faded. The fruit ripened, and Gillian and Rwth picked 
it and made jam under the mocking eyes of Fringal. But, 
whatever they were doing, they always disappeared as soon 
as the dinner was cleared away. They said nothing; 
simply, like swallows in December, they were not there. 
They evaded questions and, with the quiet obstinacy of 
bees—who at one time will be outside the hive in spite of 
all efforts to get them in, and at another will be in, what¬ 
ever may be done to get them out—continued to meet in 
Rwth’s attic room. The fresh summer breezes came in, 
laden with hay and moss and bracken scents. Dysgwlfas 
Farm, miniature but clear, met their eyes when they looked 
up from their work. And sometimes, when the wind was 
in the right quarter, they could hear the pleasant high note 
of the machine, and the shouts, made soft and short by 
distance, of Jonathan and Robert and their helpers as they 
lugged the hay. Then the fields lay like pieces of jade 
against the dark moor. Red and white cattle dotted them, 
and sheep, white from the shearing. The blackbirds grew 
silent. The whimbrels rang their elfin peals less often, 
and their pencilled chickens ran among the heather near 
the springs. The whimberries ripened, and higglers, start¬ 
ing off with their empty carts or returning with full ones, 
239 


240 


Seven for a Secret 


would stop outside the inn and shout for Fringal to bring 
them a quart of ale. 

Elmer was away a great deal. He and Isaiah went to 
fairs and auctions together now, and the mantle of Elijah 
descended upon Elisha. Elmer was tasting the promised 
success. Young men of his own age deferred to him. He 
was credited with some of Isaiah’s omniscience. There 
had been a vestry meeting, and upon Isaiah’s representa¬ 
tions he had been made churchwarden in Isaiah’s place. 
So Gillian sat in the second pew close to the Rector’s wife, 
to the exceeding content of Isaiah. Sometimes in the eve¬ 
ning Gillian played her piano, and if, by any chance, 
Robert passed with the farm cart or the trap, he would 
wait under the shelter of the hedge at the side of the house 
and listen for a little while. Isaiah came to tea in state, 
and Gillian and Elmer returned his visit. Often in the 
afternoon, towards tea-time, she would put on her best 
dress, which was covered with pink roses and had pink 
ribbons, and go across the fields to see her father. Some¬ 
times she went with Elmer to see her friends among the 
other farmers’ wives and daughters. Or she and Rwth 
would go “berrying” out on the moor. But whatever they 
were doing, they always met for the writing lesson in 
the bare little attic. And Gillian, in whom an unaccus¬ 
tomed softness and perceptiveness had begun to appear, 
would try to make these hours a delight to the little maid- 
of-all-work. She would tell Rwth to put the kettle on, 
and as soon as the men had gone out she would set the 
tray with the pretty cups, painted with violets, given her 
by Aunt Fanteague, and then she would make tea and they 
would put the tray in the attic window-sill and draw their 
chairs close together like children with a stolen feast. If 
Rwth’s energy slackened, Gillian had only to remind her 
that Robert wanted her to learn quickly, and the dark face 
would flush, the coarse, knotted hands fly over the paper. 
Sometimes they spent whole afternoons at it. Sometimes 
Gillian went to bed early and then stole up to Rwth’s 


A.B.C. at the Sign of the Maiden 241 

room to continue the lessons by moonlight. Once, on a 
wonderful and memorable day, Robert had come to thatch 
the stack. Elmer could not thatch, and Fringal was very 
lazy and had suggested that Robert should do it. So Rob¬ 
ert had his dinner and his tea at the inn. And as a newly- 
bought flock of sheep had strayed away, and Elmer and 
Fringal had to go and look for them, they carried the tea 
out on to the moor, and had a merry time. Robert asked 
how the lessons were going on. So he had to be shown 
how well Rwth could write her own name. And he was 
very much surprised, and perhaps he evinced even more 
surprise than he felt, when the four large, square, drunken 
letters sprawled out across the page—“R W T H.” 

“Now that’s a right good name,” said Robert in*his 
kindly, jesting, paternal way. “What else, Rwth?” 

She looked at the paper, she looked at Gillian, she 
looked at Robert. No help came. She did not know 
what else. 

“She can’t do things of herself, yet,” explained Gillian, 
anxious as a mother with a backward child. “She can’t 
remember things and put ’em down. She can only put 
down what I say.” 

“Well, afore I come agen,” said Robert, “teach her 
Esmeralda.” 

“Esmeralda?” 

“Ah. Rwth, do ye know that name—Esmeralda?” 

Was that a flicker in the large dark eyes? Or was it 
just friendship, gratitude and trust? 

“Ne’er mind. Just go on,” said Robert. 

Ah, what an evening! How the gold ran over out of 
the sunset sky into their hearts. How the two lovers, 
neither knowing of the other’s love, and the waif who 
loved them both, revelled in the clear rapture of comrade¬ 
ship, of being together. How marvellously good the bread 
and butter tasted, cut by Robert’s hands, which, truth to 
tell, were not very clean, for he had carried the kettle. 
And what a drink for gods was the tea made by Gillian! 


242 


Seven for a Secret 


And how happily Rwth ran to and fro, collecting sticks 
for the fire! And how glad Robert and Gillian were of 
her presence, for how could Mrs. Elmer of the Mermaid 
and her father’s cowman have picnicked on the moor unless 
she had been there to make it look like an ordinary berry¬ 
picking? And how sad, when that low obdurate baaing, 
which heralds the homecoming of strayed sheep, sounded 
faintly over the heather, to have to gather the tea things 
together and say good-bye. 

But the day gave a tremendous impetus to the writing, 
and very soon Rwth could write “Esmeralda.” 

And then, towards the end of August, came Gillian’s 
triumph. For suddenly, one Sunday evening, when Elmer 
was at church and Gillian had pleaded a headache, Rwth, 
after writing Esmeralda three times, suddenly wrote “Als” 
without any help from Gillian. First she wrote “Als.” 
Then, not satisfied, she added an “e.” Then Gillian, who 
had been teaching her the sounds of double vowels, said: 
“Is there any other letter in it?” And Rwth wrote it 
again with the “i” in it. So it stood—“Ailse.” 

Gillian folded up the paper, put it in an envelope, and 
sent Rwth to the farm cottage where only Robert was in. 
It brought Robert hotfoot over the fields. 

“I didna tell you that name, did I?” he asked. 

“Why ever should you?” Gillian answered. “I never 
knew any one of the name. Did you?” 

Robert was awed by the strangeness of destiny. For this 
was the memory of a bird, of a squirrel, memory untaught 
and expressing itself with the utmost difficulty. The name 
Esmeralda had not directly illuminated Rwth, but it had 
touched a chord which had sounded another name. 

“Now,” said Robert, “you mun just work with the two 
names. I tell you nought. First, because I munna tell 
a soul. Second, because you met put things in her mind. 
And what I want is just what’s there already. I want 
the truth. And, by gum, it looks like getting it.” 

He gazed and gazed upon the impassive face of Rwth, 


A.B.C. at the Sign of the Maiden 243 

who was Ailse—of Rwth the maid-of-all-work who was 
the daughter of a kind of gipsy-king—of Ailse who had 
prattled in gipsy merriment and who was now Rwth the 
dumb girl—of Ailse the child of sweet love, the child of 
a woman like a star, who was, or had been till Gillian’s 
advent, the dumb foundling dependent on Elmer’s charity, 
the creature that, Robert shrewdly suspected, knew what 
it was to be beaten. 

“You know what you’ve got to do?” he asked, as he 
went away, and Gillian dwelt in a maze of sweetness all 
evening at having received a command from Robert. And 
in a few days she received another. Jonathan, on his way 
to Weeping Cross, brought a few words written in haste 
on a scrap of paper, thrust into an old envelope that had 
contained advertisements of sheep dip, and fastened with 
a bit of cobbler’s wax. She laughed to herself as she 
opened it. Then, very shyly and suddenly, she kissed it. 
He said: “Get to know some bits of gipsy songs and play 
’em and see what she writes.” 

But Gillian did not know any gipsy songs, and had to 
write to Silverton for them, and there were none in Sil- 
verton. So Robert wrote to Johnson, and at long last re¬ 
ceived a letter telling him of a man who could not only 
sing them but write them down. But before the gipsy 
songs came, Gillian was away in Silverton, so the testing 
of Rwth’s memory in this was deferred for some months, 
and they went on with the writing. 

Meanwhile the corn ripened, and every one was soon 
too busy to think of anything but the harvest. Rwth-who- 
was-Ailse laboured in the brewhouse, and Gillian very 
often put her big apron on and worked with her. Fringal 
drove off almost every day with barrels of beer for this 
farm and that farm, and returned sometimes with money 
and sometimes with a quarter of mutton or a few score 
of eggs or a sack of early-lifted potatoes. And gently, 
a shilling at a time, his wages went on rising. Once, when 
Ralph was obdurate for some time, he chose a moment 


244 


Seven for a Secret 


when Gillian was in the room and observed gently with a 
sideways nod towards Rwth: “The missus ’ere.” 

Gillian did not notice. It was quite enough for Ralph, 
though. He was angry, but helpless, and he paid the 
money. Fringal was exactly the sort of sardonic, heart¬ 
less, intelligent yet ignoble person to levy blackmail suc¬ 
cessfully. 

Robert did not come to the inn till the harvest was 
“saved:” or at least until the last was in stook. The only 
young man on a farm always has plenty of work to do, 
all the early jobs and the hard jobs and the risky jobs. 
And Jonathan had been getting more feeble very gently 
for years. Nobody noticed it because they saw him every 
day, but insensibly more and more things were left to 
Robert. So the mystery at the Mermaid was left for the 
time, and not only Ailse, but Gillian herself had a very 
small place in Robert’s thoughts—intent on the all-impor¬ 
tant harvest. But after harvest Robert promised himself 
to go thoroughly into the matter. There was no hurry, 
because Johnson was not returning until November, being 
laid up with rheumatism in a small Welsh town, and not 
able to travel. So an absolute peace lay upon the inn and 
the moor and the farm. Ralph and Fringal and Rwth 
had been absorbed into the life of the place, and the ripples 
of their advent had subsided. Ralph already saw himself 
as a second Isaiah, laying down the law, treating people 
to drinks, tolerant yet just, popular with gentry and cot¬ 
tagers, with his pretty Gillian waiting for him at home, 
with so much money coming in that Fringal’s paltry de¬ 
mands were as nothing, and with Rwth—as ever—cowed, 
submissive, dumb. Never, for a single instant, did he 
dream that the man with the curiously intent grey eyes 
who trudged to fairs with the sheep while he and Isaiah 
drove, the man with the quiet, curving mouth which could 
so suddenly become set and relentless, knew any more about 
him than the bleating flocks he led. That this man had 
pieced together a part of his own history which he believed 


A.B.C. at the Sign of the Maiden 245 

unknown to any but Fringal the bribable and Rwth the 
incurably dumb; that he had summed up his character to 
a nicety; and that he was silently but quite mercilessly 
watching him, giving him room to commit himself, and 
all the while only waiting to put him to the test—was as 
far from Elmer’s happy, successful thoughts as were those 
long-forgotten threats of Isaiah’s at the Drover’s Arms. 
Would he have been afraid if he had known about Johnson 
being Robert’s friend, and had guessed that the only thing 
that withheld Robert from confronting him with the gipsy 
was Gillian’s love of him, and that Robert watched and 
listened for the undercurrents beneath their lives to find 
out if that love still existed? Would he have continued 
his happy life with no guilty secret to make him afraid, 
or would he have left his inn and his flocks and Gillian, 
and fled? Then the things that afterwards happened at 
the Inn of the Maiden would not have happened, and the 
spirit of evil which was to leap out of the solid earth like 
a devastating flame and threaten Gillian’s very soul, would 
perhaps never have heard, in its quiescence beneath the 
things that are, the sound that was to awaken it—the 
stealthy footfall of Ralph Elmer in the unket place. 


chapter xxvii : “In a Dream She Cradled 


Me” 


T last the corn was all carried, even to the thin rak- 



il ings. The fowls had pecked the corn out of these; 
the turkeys had gone to the stubble; potatoes were being 
lifted; the hum of the threshing had already begun; soon 
Robert would be driving straight reddish-brown furrows 
in the pale stubble. The autumn sheep sales were going 
on up in the hills. The ewes that had feasted all summer 
on the sweet herbage of valley and summit were brought 
down before the hard weather should set in, only a small 
flock being kept by each of the hill commoners. Isaiah 
always took Robert to these fairs, for it is customary for 
the shepherd to advise his master on such occasions. So 
Isaiah and Ralph had the front seat and Robert had the 
back, returning on foot with the sheep. Sometimes, when 
Ralph laughed his secure, careless laugh, a contraction of 
the muscles in Robert’s hands would occur, and Robert 
would have a sudden desire to throw Ralph out of the trap 
—why, he could not tell, for he knew nothing whatever 
about him. The fact that Rwth was Johnson’s daughter 
need not necessarily mean that Elmer was a villain. But 
it probably meant that somebody was, and Robert intended 
to And out the mystery. 

It was mid-October and the day of a sheep sale. Ralph 
was waiting in the kitchen, which was both hall and bar, 
until Isaiah and Robert should appear. Gillian leant 
against the table, dutifully brushing Ralph’s hat, but, as 
the brush went industriously round and round, she was 
planning a day’s festivity for herself and Rwth—a day 
which was to begin with a long, secret, satisfying gaze at 
Robert during the fuss of Ralph’s getting off, a look at 
Robert in his best suit (which she liked, not because it 


246 


“In a Dream She Cradled Me” 247 


was his best, but because its grey accentuated the grey fire 
in his eyes) and the hat with plaited cord round the crown, 
and the home-made pen (which had now written several 
important letters) stuck through the cord at the side, in 
case it should be necessary to sign his name during any 
business transaction. There was also the fellow to Rwth’s 
handkerchief in his breast pocket, and there were his best 
boots, a thought less thick and weighty than the others, 
and not quite so heavily shod with iron. Then, of course, 
there was Robert’s face—the brown face with its economy 
of flesh, its lines of humour and thought and labour, the 
sweeping brows with their look of almost lifting into 
wings, the heavy lashes whence the eyes looked out like 
creatures from an ambush—tameless, mysterious, intensely 
alive and full of questions and demands and gifts which 
his mouth (by nature) continually assented to in every 
curve, but (by the decree of Robert’s will) at the same 
time continually denied. There was his way of sitting 
there on the back seat with his arms properly folded like 
a groom and the correct biddable manner of a groom—* 
and yet making even Isaiah’s pomp look foolish. And 
there was the tacit understanding that Robert would con¬ 
form to all the usual standards—with a reservation. Then 
there was his voice, which had the same natural warmth 
and acquired severity. To hear him say “Mrs. Elmer” 
was a pain that she dreaded yet desired. She persisted in 
bringing it on herself. She also tried to cause him to give 
her some order, such as: “Mind the wheel, Mrs. Elmer!” 
Once she had even had to stand on the felly of the wheel 
with her feet between the spokes almost until Isaiah said: 
“Tabor on!” to the mare. Robert had seen her quite well: 
but he made his mouth into a line and remained silent, 
giving her to understand that her own commonsense, her 
father, or her husband should guard her from her childish 
foolishness. So Gillian said to herself with a kind of 
petulant ecstasy: “I’ll stay on this old wheel till my legs 
are broke, but I’ll make Robert speak.” 


248 


Seven for a Secret 


She saw (and Robert knew) when Isaiah drew up the 
rug, settled the reins more comfortably, grunted, took up 
the whip and prepared to say “Tabor on!” Then Robert 
looked at Gillian. Obstinacy veiling passion met obstinacy 
veiling deeper passion. Wrath in Robert’s eye met re¬ 
bellion in Gillian’s, and before the first syllable of 
“Tabor” was out, Robert said: “Please to gerroff that 
wheel, Mrs. Elmer!” But by the end of the sentence the 
words were so frozen that the delight of the order was 
rather dashed. 

Lately the writing had provided a real reason for orders, 
and when Robert, after enquiries, said: “Well, get on 
with it!” there was such a spirit of delight at the Mer¬ 
maid that the very cat became intoxicated and played with 
pens and copybooks and ink to the destruction of all three. 
If the vast, vague Someone who created Robert and Gil¬ 
lian and Rwth has in Itself anything ironical (and this 
must be so, because It created Fringal and all the Frin- 
galism in the world), It must have felt gratified at the 
pleasant irony of these departures. For there was the 
Toy-in-Chief, Isaiah, the omniscient, hoodwinked and be¬ 
fooled by his own child and everybody else. And there 
was the Successful Toy with his fruit of happiness which 
had been nourished on some evil thing, but which looked 
deliciously ripe and sweet—and was quite dry and hollow 
within. And there were Gillian and Rwth, both living 
with the man of the Mermaid and both in love with the 
man of the farm. And Rwth, the little maid-of-all-work, 
had begun life covered with gold and silver, while Gillian, 
the child of a rich father, the mistress of the Inn, might 
hear at any moment those words of Fringal accompanied 
by a nod to Rwth: “the missus ’ere.” And there was 
Robert, grim and gruff, with enough passionate love-poems 
under his pen-decked hat to conquer the hearts of half-a- 
dozen women, and because one very ordinary little country 
girl did not tell him she loved him these songs would never 
be seen nor heard by anybody. There had been Fringal 


“In a Dream She Cradled Me” 249 


himself on that May Day, sitting on his bed, laughing 
over his “rise,” while the man who might kill him if 
Robert gave him a hint (granted that Robert found out 
anything to his disadvantage) passed within a few yards 
of him, unconscious. It must all have provided Provi¬ 
dence with some very pleasant cogitation, if Providence 
ever has time to look down on Dysgwlfas. If He looks 
at Dysgwlfas now—but we must get back to our satire. 

On the floor knelt Rwth, blacking Ralph’s boots. Ralph 
was counting money and notes, and the safe stood on the 
table. Gillian wished she could fling it and herself at 
Robert’s solidly shod feet. But when the sound of wheels 
came, there was another little irony—for Robert was not 
there. 

“I’m sorry, Ralph, I canna go to the sale,” called Isaiah. 

He came in. 

“Your poor A’nt Emily’s worse,” he said. “She’s heard 
a cradle rocking for a week or more, and now she says 
there’s hundreds of little angels with no bodies, like on 
Christmas cards, filling the place so as she can’t breathe. 
And she wants a butterfly net. So your A’nt Fanteague 
she’s sent for me. Poor Emily! That’s what comes of 
being childless.” 

He gave the young couple an admonitory look. Jona¬ 
than, from the trap just outside, said: 

“It minds me of the tale of Melchisedech Barrows, the 
silent man. If there was a thing in life that chap wanted, 
’twas a son. And the young woman he fancied was ter¬ 
rible fond of children. But they never had none because 
he wouldna spend the words to ax her to wed. Between 
whiles he thought of what he’d say. But when he was 
with the girl no words ’ud come. So when she’d waited 
about ten years, she took and died of a decline. And after 
about ten year more he began to go very simple. And a 
pity it was, for they met ’a reared a nice family and been 
remembered.” 

“Well, the long and the short of it is, Jonathan and 


250 


Seven for a Secret 


me’s off to Silverton,” said Isaiah. “You mun go to the 
sale alone, Ralph. We’ll be back to-morrow night.” 

So they drove away. But it was many a long day before 
Isaiah came home, and poor Jonathan had told his last 
story and he never came back at all. Nobody knew quite 
what happened; but on the evening of their return, just 
outside Silverton, Jonathan must by mistake have pulled 
the correct rein. According to her usual custom, the mare 
going in exactly the opposite way, the long-expected dis¬ 
aster of Jonathan’s life occurred, and when the remnants 
of the trap and harness were picked up, Jonathan was past 
all Abigail’s care forever. Almost there could be read on 
the still, passive, fatalistic face, the poignant regret that 
he had not lived to eat his own funeral feast. But whether 
Isaiah “fell soft,” or whether he simply lifted up his great 
voice and said “Ha!” to Death, as he had to Dosset’s bull, 
and scared away the king of terror, at any rate Isaiah was 
alive when they found him. And alive he remained. He 
was taken back to his sister’s, where Emily had not ceased 
her dreaming, and Mrs. Fanteague at last had almost 
enough to do. For not only was there Emily with her 
entourage of cherubic heads, but there was Isaiah, who 
was so offended at being laid low that he “grumped” all 
the time and would have nobody but his sister in the room. 
Then there was Gillian, who came to help and really hin¬ 
dered, for there was still very little abnegation in Gillian’s 
nature. There was also Abigail Makepeace, who came for 
her husband’s funeral and was like a bird lost in a great 
waste now that she had no one to manage. She sat in the 
kitchen with the day-girl and wept, talking intermittently 
through her apron. And her mind was so distraught with 
the lack of Jonathan’s distraughtness that she talked about 
both husbands impartially and without differentiation, so 
that the day-girl never knew whether it was John Rideout 
who “a’most needed a bib and bottle, the poor dear man,” 
or whether it was Jonathan Makepeace with whom it was 
“one word, and that the right word, and no more said.” 


“In a Dream She Cradled Me” 251 


And she (the day-girl) became quite useless to Mrs. 
Fanteague because her mind was full of Jonathan-John, 
whose huge, confused, conflicting personality she was un¬ 
able to grasp. It was really the great hour of Mrs. Fan- 
teague’s life. Her gifts of being prop and stay were called 
into full use at last. And it was such a joy to be able 
quite conscientiously to tell the Vicar’s wife that there was 
nobody to do a hand’s turn but herself. She even mourned 
for Jonathan better than his wife did. She knew what 
text Jonathan would have liked on his headstone—or if 
she did not, she at least chose a suitable one—“As a tale 
that is told.” She could face Isaiah’s icy misery of sick¬ 
ness with a very blaze of cheerfulness. When Gillian 
hinted that she wanted to go home (only Gillian knowing 
that it was Robert and not Ralph that drew her), Mrs. 
Fanteague said that a sick father came before a healthy 
husband and that she was surprised at such lovesickness 
after over four months of marriage. To which Gillian 
composedly replied: “So am I.” When Emily fought the 
cherubs, Mrs. Fanteague fetched a feather duster and 
swept them away, and Emily was pacified. 

Meanwhile, at Dysgwlfas, Robert went on with the 
writing lessons on the rare occasions when Ralph was away, 
Fringal busy out of doors, and he himself free of work. 
It was on one of these occasions that Rwth wrote some¬ 
thing which startled him very much. It even made him 
pause in the lessons on the very verge of discovery. It 
was a cold, wet evening, settling into a dreary night. 
Ralph and Fringal were at Weeping Cross. No customers 
were in the bar. Only Rwth and Robert sat by the fire. 
Robert was smoking, wondering when he would try his 
great experiment on Ralph. He bent forward to see how 
Rwth was getting on. She was writing on a stray sheet 
and not in the copybook. She had written “Gillian loves 
Maister, Ailse loves Robert.” She was not aware that 
Robert had seen it. 

With a flush in his face he quietly leant back, watching 


252 


Seven for a Secret 


her with half-closed lids guarding his already deep and 
guarded eyes, while she secretly looked at what she had 
written and slipped it into her pocket. 

Strange! Here was this forlorn creature who had never 
received love since she could remember, pouring out her 
love for him. He knew, now, the meaning of those liquid 
dark looks, those silences full of the wing-beats of the 
spirit—for he was intensely sensitive (as all poets are) to 
silence. The quality of a person’s silence was his measure 
of the person. He knew Gruffydd for a more complete 
personality than himself because his silence was of more 
dimensions than his own. The silence of many people is 
quite flat and thin, meaningless. Those people are to be 
avoided, not because they are evil, but because they have 
not enough life in their souls to be either evil or good. 
Now Robert had observed the silences of Rwth, and that 
they were richer, thicker, as it were, than those of most 
of the people he knew—far richer than Gillian’s. Gil¬ 
lian’s was of one dimension only; in it she dreamed her¬ 
self—the dream of the world of suffering and ecstasy 
was not in her silence. It was in Rwth’s. Strange, and 
very strange, that the woman to whom his love was irrev¬ 
ocably given should not have this quality, while this waif 
had it! Curious, that when he looked into the lake of her 
mind he should see not only the misted, enormous reflec¬ 
tions of existence, but also—himself. Himself exactly as 
he was, and not in the least as Gillian saw him—and all 
this without so much as a “with your leave” to him, and 
without a glimmer of understanding from Rwth’s every¬ 
day self. Yet, though she could never have put the thing 
into words, she understood him. He knew, as he sat there 
with his eyes shut, that she could never misconstrue any 
motive of his, though his mother might. She could never 
accidentally wound him, as Gillian did. She, who toiled 
weekdays and Sundays, was his rest. She, who was dumb, 
spoke with the tongue of silence. So it happened to Robert, 
as to many, that the woman who held his soul like a babe 


“In a Dream She Cradled Me” 253 

in her arms was not the woman he would have chosen to 
mother his children, was not the woman he loved, in whose 
presence time flowed by unheard, and whose gift was 
eternity. It was Gillian who took his breath so that often 
he could not speak to her at all. But it was Rwth who 
knew, very far down in her soul, all about this breathless 
wonder of his, who wondered with him, pitied, understood. 

There and then, as men have done in all time, Robert 
turned Rwth into the Madonna-woman. In ignorance of 
what his secret self was doing, he set up a little shrine and 
put her there—womanhood etherealised, with a grieved, 
unprovocative beauty. He felt that he could quite easily 
have told her about that unlucky business of the girl at 
Shepcot when he was eighteen. Only it was not neces¬ 
sary. She understood the wildness that was in him, she 
knew how the pulses hammered in your ears, how the 
savage yearning seized you, how the cleaner you lived and 
the healthier you were, the madder was desire when it 
came. Gillian would not have known. Shame seized him 
at the very idea of Gillian in connection with this old 
episode in his life. Gillian herself awoke these savage 
yearnings, she was fuel for that fire as well as he. It is 
almost impossible for the same woman to stir and be stirred 
by passion and to feel maternal towards the man who has 
roused it. Exceptional women might, by the strength of 
their spirits, by the splendour of love and abnegation, 
achieve it; but Gillian was not exceptional. She would 
probably never attain the detachment necessary. The man 
she loved would always remain for her the lover, the mate, 
the ruler, the giver of children and of daily bread, the 
comforter. To her children she would be, perhaps, ma¬ 
ternal. But she would never find in any corner of her 
lover’s personality (even if that lover were the right one 
and not Elmer) the little weeping lad who is somewhere 
in every man. 

Robert decided that the writing lessons must stop, not 
because there was anything wrong in this relationship, but 


254 


Seven for a Secret 


because he felt it a kind of disloyalty to Gillian to be 
understood so well by another woman. He felt precisely 
as the lover in the old tale must have felt when the Ma¬ 
donna, on whose finger he had thoughtlessly slipped his 
bride’s ring, softly stepped between them on their wedding 
night. But the depth of her immortal understanding of 
desire was no comfort to the young bridegroom all on fire 
for the bride in her sweet mortality. It is useless to tell a 
child all about a flower when what it wants is just the 
flower—to pluck it and to wear it. So the Madonnas must 
always be content to give and to receive nothing, to see 
the eyes of men ever on the pink rose waving above the 
hedge, and to comfort them when the thorns have been 
sharp. 

Robert was not picking roses, but he was dreaming of 
one, and there was a sense of discomfort in his mind at 
the idea of sharing his dream, even in this vague, half¬ 
conscious way. And all the while he was full of wonder 
that a being so crushed and so like the dumb, driven crea¬ 
tures of the fields, should give him this extraordinary sense 
of rest. Again and again he looked at her searchingly, 
marvelling at it. “Ailse loves Robert.” How simple! 
Yet how piercing the three words were! For a moment 
her sincerity made Gillian seem almost uninteresting. Sup¬ 
posing he had first met this girl as a young gipsy, gay and 
proud, the daughter of the chief of the tribe? Would 
he have given her the love he had given to Gillian? He 
could not tell. But in the light of her love he saw that 
she was not ugly. Success and joy and a measure of ease 
might have made her almost beautiful in a strange un¬ 
tamed way. He knocked his pipe out and got up to go. 

“Well, good-night, Rwth. Get on with it; I shanna 
be able to come for a bit,” he said. 

Rwth smiled in her usual way. And that was all. 
Why, then, were Robert’s eyes full of tears as he tramped 
away to his lonely supper at the cottage, where no more 
his stepfather told stories in an atmosphere of danger, 


“In a Dream She Cradled Me” 255 


where he had to fend for himself during his mother’s 
absence. Was he to know that, every time he went to a 
fair or a sale, a small, thin, dark-clad figure stole over 
from the inn and scrubbed his floors? He wrote to his 
mother that he was proud of keeping the place so clean, 
and that he hardly ever had to wash the floors. His mother 
smiled. 

“I doubt I’ll find a pigstye when I’ve raught back,” she 
said, not knowing of the elf who scrubbed and polished, 
always very careful to have finished long before Robert 
should return—so that all should be dry. Robert found 
it very quiet on the farm without the loud voice of Isaiah, 
but his time was full, and he had not much leisure for 
thought. His time, apparently, would always be full, for 
he heard that Isaiah would never again be strong enough 
for an ordinary farmer’s life, and Robert did not intend 
to desert him. He only hoped that Elmer and Gillian 
would not come to live here, for he did not feel that he 
could stand receiving orders from Elmer. 

“Well, we mun grin and abide and see what comes,” 
he observed, as he drove his plough through the reeking 
wet soil under the low brooding clouds that always haunt 
Dysgwlfas in the dark months. And while the silver 
plough-share cut into the stiff soil, his spirit drove its way 
into the heart of the moor and left on its stern beauty the 
long shining fruitful furrows of the imagination. He 
wrapped himself in the moor, and he attained a beauty he 
could not have won in a town. Little by little he made 
his poem—rugged, sweet and wild—and when he sat alone 
by the fire in the evenings, he was comforted by this 
unifying of himself with the beauty of the earth, by this 
caging and taming of remote loveliness, by the welding 
of phrases and the ripple of metres and the mysterious 
mingling of his soul with the sweeping dark expanses with 
their grey roofing cloud. And the vast moor, seamed and 
chasmed with streams, the immense heaven, veiled and 
feathered with cloud, were like his own personality—large 


256 


Seven for a Secret 


and vital, passionate and stormy, yet veined with melan¬ 
choly and brooded over by philosophy. 

And this is the song that Robert made for Ailse, though 
she never saw it nor heard it. 

She inna like a woman fair, 

She inna like a little child. 

But she is like the evening mild, 

And like the wide and quiet air. 

Not as a golden star is she, 

But like dim sky where stars can shine. 

She’s not my love (oh, love o’ mine!) 

But in a dream she cradled me. 


CHAPTER xxvm : Fringal Forgets to 
Laugh 

A S the November evenings drew in Ralph began to 
miss Gillian more and more. He wrote demanding 
that she should come back, and as Isaiah was out of danger 
and Mrs. Makepeace willing to stay, Gillian decided to go 
home. 

Ralph met her at the Keep on a cold blue afternoon 
with the first powder of snow on the hills. She was glad 
to be back. It was very sweet to see her old home in its 
hollow, and the cottage, and Robert leaning over the yard 
gate of the inn, come to give her a welcome and enquire 
after Isaiah. It was a joy to think that the writing lessons 
would begin again and that Robert would again say: 
“Well, get on with it!” The two young men would have 
to attend fairs alone now, and she hoped they would not 
quarrel. 

“Ralph’s so aggravating, times,” she thought, “and 
Robert’s tempersome now and agen.” She was very glad 
to see Rwth, too, for the girls were fond of each other, 
and the shared secret of the writing, as well as the un¬ 
shared secret of their love, drew them together. And oh! 
joy of joys! When they were up in Rwth’s attic looking 
over the winterly country, Rwth gave her a slip of a note 
from Robert. 

Robert was coming on Friday evening. Gillian was to 
have the songs ready to play, and to arrange that Ralph 
and Fringal should both be there when she played them, 
and Rwth was to have the old blackboard from the farm, 
on which Mrs. Fanteague and Isaiah and Emily had learnt 
their lessons long ago. It was to be covered with a cloth 
until the moment came. And Rwth was to write on the 
board anything the music made her think of. There was 


258 


Seven for a Secret 


to be a big fire, and there were to be both lamps—kitchen 
and sitting-room. And if Mrs. Elmer would be so kind, 
Robert would take a cup of tea with them. 

Gillian was in an ecstasy. The idea of tea occurred 
to Robert as a means of getting everybody together and 
being able to choose his seat. Also, he wanted Ralph, 
Rwth and Fringal in one room, and Gillian in the other. 
This could easily be managed if Gillian played her piano 
while the others were at tea. During the hour before Gil¬ 
lian’s arrival he had taught Rwth exactly what she was 
to do. She was first to write all she had previously written 
—her name, and Esmeralda, and other things she had 
remembered. Then she was to write the names of the 
places up in Wales where she had lived, and various stray 
names and words that he could not identify or get into 
connection with the rest. Lastly, she was to write any¬ 
thing the music made her think of, and, if her own name 
and others occurred in connection with newly remembered 
names, then she was to put those down too. 

Gillian was afraid, as she remembered Ralph’s black 
looks whenever Rwth showed any new intelligence. What 
would he and Fringal do when they discovered all this? 
Still, Robert would be there. All would be well. Even 
now she could see him, down in the meadow that stretched 
out long and narrow from the farm fields to the Unket 
Place. He was rounding up the sheep (which always lay 
in this meadow in November) in case there should be 
snow. Now he was gone into the twilight with his pat¬ 
tering flock. The air was cold and glassy, and everything 
presaged snow within a few days. The far hills, where 
the sunset had been, floated on the purple darkness of the 
moor cut out of palest sapphire, and on their pointed or 
rounded tops the blurs of snow faded in the white sunset 
clouds. The Unket Place lay darkly by the water; as 
Gillian looked at it she suddenly said: 

“I’m a child of sin, Rwth!” 

As Rwth looked at it her black eyes grew blacker, 


Fringal Forgets to Laugh 259 

sorrow and trembling seized her heart. But then she re¬ 
membered the altar that was there, the woodland altar 
she had set up little by little as she gathered sticks, the 
altar decked with fir cones and consecrated to him who 
was as her god, and also as an infant gathered to her 
breast. A smile, wild and dazzling, flashed over the swart 
face, and in the glory of her love she was suddenly Ailse, 
the gipsy queen, Ailse rare and rich and alluring, Ailse 
lifted from all the troubles of the children of men by her 
love—lifted even beyond fear of the King of Fear. And 
Robert, glancing at the Unket Place as he led away his 
flock, knew that the hour was coming soon when his 
presage would be fulfilled, when evil would leap out and 
there would be none to wrestle with it but himself, when 
the snow would fall and muffle Dwsgwlfas, and some¬ 
where in the snow he must fight blindly with his own im¬ 
pulses, his own desires, to save his love—to keep the spring 
for Gillian, and Gillian for the spring. 

Only a little snow had fallen by Friday, and Rwth 
had been busy each morning gathering sticks in the gyland 
ready for the hard weather. Lower and lower drooped 
the soft, grey, massy clouds, as if to shut Dysgwlfas away 
from the world, so that the drama that was preparing 
there should be undisturbed. Wilder cried the peewits 
across the mangold field, and the notes of the owls shud¬ 
dered through the little wood half the night—for the moon 
was at the full and the hunt was fierce and easy. 

And away over the dark hills Johnson was travelling, 
unknown to Robert, towards the inn of The Mermaid, 
for the gipsy woman had told him of a girl there who, 
though she could not speak, seemed to know the gipsy 
speech, and whose eyes were large and black and clear. 

All Friday morning Gillian and Rwth prepared for the 
feast. They made a cake. They cut mountains of bread 
and butter, and Rwth put off her daily gathering of sticks 
till to-morrow, when she could, unless the snow came 
sooner than it was expected, gather all day. But now there 


260 


Seven for a Secret 


was such an infinity of things to do! Every chair and 
table had to be polished. The floor must be washed with 
milk and water to make it shine. The best china must 
be dusted. Not one of these things would be noticed by 
Robert, but what did that matter? Do those dear and 
simple souls who go to church across the fields every Sun¬ 
day, scrupulously clad in their best, with a sprig of south¬ 
ernwood in their prayer-books, really think that God 
notices whether they have on the best black coat or only 
the second best grey one with the frayed sleeve? Do they 
really believe He smells the southernwood? The point is 
that the best coat is on and the southernwood there—for 
that is part of the revel of worship. Thus the best china 
and the polish on the chairs were essential both to Gillian 
and Rwth. Rwth did not know the songs that Gillian 
was going to sing. It all added to the thrill of the day. 

“Well!” (Fringal inserted himself in the door). 
“There’s to be a feast of fat things, seemingly.” 

An overwhelming gust of laughter drowned his words, 
for the excitement of the two girls, being mysterious, 
seemed to him exceedingly funny. Everything Fringal 
could not understand, from mother-love to the structure 
of a threshing machine, seemed inexhaustibly comical to 
him. 

“It’s for you too, Fringal!” said Gillian, with unex¬ 
pected geniality. She disliked Fringal. He always made 
her feel as if she was not really the mistress of the house 
at all. “You’re to come in to your five o’clock in the 
bar (they usually called the kitchen the bar), and Robert’s 
coming too, to see the Master, and Rwth’s going to sit 
down with us, and I’m going to play.” 

“What a joke! Oh, what an overpoweringly funny 
joke!” Fringal was in agonies of mirth. To play! To 
draw sounds out of that curious invention of wood and 
wire, and then to lift up her voice and (as Fringal put it) 
to caterwaul. Well! it promised to be a very enjoyable 
evening. Plenty to eat and plenty to laugh at. That had 


Fringal Forgets to Laugh 261 

always been Fringal’s motto. The only trouble was that 
it was always “at” and never “with” that Fringal laughed. 
The only creature he might have been sufficiently detached 
from self to laugh with was the little cush-cow—and the 
little cush-cow (which had returned with Gillian on her 
marriage) had no sense of humour. 

Ralph had gone to Dosset’s, but was to be back before 
teatime. At three o’clock Gillian disappeared. She was 
going to put on a new winter dress—slatey like the old 
one, but grander, made of rippling silk—and she was going 
to wave her hair. For the interest of the afternoon ‘for 
her, as for Fringal, centred in herself—only she had given 
her soul into Robert’s keeping, so her absorption included 
Robert. But it was not Robert’s experiment, the myste¬ 
rious idea he was working out, that interested her. It was 
simply the knowledge that those dark eyes would look at 
her. Their light would play over her. She would let fall 
every pretence and simply rest in them. And she would 
play upon his heart-strings with her voice. Long and long 
ago she had told him that she wanted to make folk cry. 
She had longed to make them remember her, love her, rue 
her. She would make Robert love her to-day. She would 
fill those grey eyes with tears. She would awake desire. 
For in that moment when, in the shadows at Weeping 
Cross, brilliant eye met brilliant eye, she had learnt what 
desire was. She thought that if ever Robert looked at her 
as Ralph had done she would die of sheer joy. She knew 
what the song was, the first song she must sing. And oh! 
the name she would think while her voice spoke across 
the kitchen from the little parlour, the name she would 
conjure and adore, was the name of Robert Rideout! 

“Robert Rideout O!” she murmured as she fluffed 
her hair to make it look prettier, “it’s the name of names!” 

She floated down. Rwth held up admiring hands. 
They waited—the young mistress, assured and sweet, in 
the hyacinthine gown of lights and shadows, and the little 
maid, in her old black dress and a clean apron, with the 


262 


Seven for a Secret 


new cap Gillian had bought her. They sat by the fire, 
only one dumb in reality, but both dumb with love. A 
sound! Is it he? No. On the pale sky beyond the win¬ 
dow moves Fringal’s head, like a gargoyle set up on a 
church. 

“Be I to come now, missus?” 

“Ah.” 

Fringal sat down at a judicious distance from the 
mistress. 

Quick feet on the hard ground! Is it he? No. It is 
Ralph come back from the farm. 

“Is tea ready?” said he. 

“Everything’s been ready and waiting this long while 
past,” replied Gillian, unconscious of the double meaning 
of her words. But something in the room seemed to 
hansel her words and give them another meaning—some¬ 
thing that was akin to the faint soughing of the snow wind 
in the chimney, and the pale, deathly colour of the sky. 

Another sound! The two girls became still, intent, 
watching the door. 

“Oh, please God, let him have the grey suit on!” 

This was Gillian, in the depths of her silence. 

There were no words in Rwth’s silence. 

Robert knocked the soil from his boots and came in. 

Both girls softly rose. So might two queens of Faery 
arise in their places to greet a visitant from earth. 

Then Rwth went into the back kitchen and made the 
tea, and the meal began. 

“Closing in early,” said Ralph. 

“Ah! I reckon there’ll be a downfall soon,” replied 
Robert. 

“Snow, Robert?” 

“Ah; snow, Mrs. Elmer,” said Robert. 

“Why dunna you say ‘Gillian/ like you was used to?” 

“You’re a married lady now, Mrs. Elmer.” 

Robert’s eyes rested on Ralph for a moment. 


Fringal Forgets to Laugh 263 

“Yes, yes! you’re married now,” assented Ralph. 

There was a sound from the other side of the table like 
a cat sneezing. It could hardly have been Fringal laugh¬ 
ing, because when Gillian looked at him he was quite 
solemn. 

“I canna see why, because I’m married, you should give 
me the cold shoulder,” complained Gillian, and her eyes 
appealed and lured him. But Robert thought: “She’s more 
in love with Elmer than ever.” 

And because that look of hers made him confused and 
hoarse he deliberately turned away—and there was Rwth, 
there was Ailse-who-loved-Robert, softly looking upon him 
with her dwelling eyes. Had Robert been of a cynical 
turn of mind he would have been amused: but he had 
nothing of the cynic in him. It only struck him as rather 
pathetic that this child should feel thus towards himself 
and that he should be hopelessly in love with Gillian. He 
had heard Fringal’s little sneeze of laughter. And again 
suspicion awoke in him—suspicion that hurt him abomi¬ 
nably because it affected Gillian. He looked straight across 
at Ralph, who was in the full lamplight, and said: 

“Be you in agreement with marrying twice, Elmer?” 

Why did Ralph’s eyes fly to Fringal’s face so sud¬ 
denly? What was that expression? Nothing, surely 
nothing. 

“No,” said Ralph loudly. “No.” He turned away 
from Rwth towards Gillian: “Once married, married for 
good.” 

“Or ill,” put in Fringal softly, and laughed the shadow 
of a laugh. 

“And suppose you’d got married to one and then you 
got to like another as didn’t rightly belong to you, would 
you leave the one an’ go to the other?” 

“No, no!” Elmer spoke hastily, irritably. “No. Bet¬ 
ter a slut of your own than share a queen.” 

Rwth’s gaze moved away from Robert, and lit on Ralph. 


264 Seven for a Secret 

The change in it was the change from a caress to a sword- 
gleam. 

The room had become curiously electric—like the 
atmosphere before a contest. And it was Robert, not the 
master of the house, who dominated it. 

He turned to Gillian, and the firelight caressed his face, 
showed the lines of thought and care and love. Tender¬ 
ness lit his eyes, but under the tenderness they were stern. 

“Sing, Gillian, oot?” he said. 

Whether he did it purposely or not, his calling her by 
her Christian name was fire in her veins. She forgot 
Ralph, she forgot the sneering Fringal, where she was and 
what she was. She even forgot why she was to sing. 
Why? Ah, she knew very well why she was to sing! 
She was going to sing her heart out, in a gipsy song to 
Robert Rideout. She was going to make him, make him 
see. She was going to sing him out of the dream of fact 
into the reality of love. Her fault? It was not. He 
had planned it. He had given her the piano. He had told 
her to sing. He had sent to Johnson’s friend for the song 
that Esmeralda, taught by her mother and her grand¬ 
mother—for the song had come down the generations— 
had sung to Ailse by the quiet waters of Fairy Dingle. 
Not that Gillian knew this. She only knew it was a song 
that made her tremble, that made her afraid, that rang in 
her mind bells that she had never yet heard. If she could 
sing the song to Robert as she wanted to sing it, surely 
—surely—Robert would understand? Surely he would 
see at last that she loved him, and not Ralph, that she 
longed and longed- 

With a queenly air, her head high, the firelight making 
a glory of her dress, she walked across the kitchen and 
disappeared in the little parlour. 

Robert glanced at Rwth, and she quietly rose and sat 
down near the blackboard. Robert shifted his position 
so that he could see Ralph and Fringal as well as the 
board. 



Fringal Forgets to Laugh 265 

And this is the song that Gillian, wife of Ralph, sang 
in the dusk to Robert Rideout, her father’s shepherd: 

“O littlest one! 

Only a spring, a fall o’ leaf, a winter fled 
Since I did mock my mother when she said 
Some day I’d love. 

O thou! 

Little and small upon my breast, 

Taking thy ease, taking thy rest- 

Thou littlest one! 

See, see, what thee hast done! 

Wasna I crazed enough with love afore— 

Feeling that little head nestling at last 
Upon my breast, those little fingers fast 
In mine: but thee has found a new surprise 
Smiling upon me with thy father’s eyes!” 

Robert was dazed, blinded to what was going on by 
the voice of Gillian, always beautiful to him, but now 
full of some new glory, something that dazzled him, fired 
him, set him groping for some way—any way by which 
he might put his arms round Gillian and never let her go. 

When the song was over he sat with bowed head, then 
suddenly started up to go to her, and as suddenly sat down 
again. He had forgotten—forgotten- 

He looked across at Rwth, she had uncovered the black¬ 
board. She was writing. What had she written, what 
was she writing now? One glance at the white chalk 
moving slowly and relentlessly like Fate, and he fixed 
his eyes first on the face of Fringal, then on that of Ralph. 
With jaw dropped, stark as a dead man, Fringal sat. For 
the first time in his life he had forgotten to laugh. Ralph 
was almost as pale as the chalk, only not white, but of a 
sickly grey. 

Neither of them seemed able to move nor to speak. 
They were like two paralysed men looking on while all 
their worldly possessions were flung into the sea. It was 
impossible to say, from the expression of Rwth’s face, 



266 


Seven for a Secret 


whether she understood the gravity of what she was doing. 
But whether she did or not she intended to go through 
with it. It was Robert’s wish. That was enough. 

The white letters shone relentlessly from the board. 

Esmeralda. Mother . Fairy Dingle. Fringal beat Ailse. 
Mister Elmer. 

Elmer gave an audible groan; but still he did not seem 
able to get up and end it. Gillian, obedient to a word 
from Robert, was playing again. The writing went on: 

All Saints Church. Black Mountain. Mrs. Rwth 
Elmer. A baby. Fringal took it away. Rwth forgot her 
words. . . . Dysgwlfas. . . . 

Here the busy chalk stopped, snapped. Rwth flung the 
pieces on the floor. 

The silence ached. The music in the other room had 
ceased. On the black window one snowflake flattened itself 
enquiringly. There was a sound in the parlour. Gillian 
was coming. 

“Go on playing, Gillian,” said Robert. His voice was 
harsh and imperious. She wondered at it, but she played 
again. 

Robert was as pale as Ralph now. His eyes stared 
fiercely at his rival. This was what he had sacrified him¬ 
self for! So that Gillian should be made a mock of! He 
started forward with such ferocity in his look that Ralph 
almost cowered. 

“Is it true?” he said. “Is it true?” 

He spoke very low, so that Gillian should not hear. 

He had got Ralph by the collar. He was almost drunk 
with rage. But all Ralph could say was: 

“How did she learn? Oh, how did she learn?” He 
was stupefied with wonder. 

Rwth sat huddled beneath the blackboard. It was 


Fringal Forgets to Laugh 267 

Fringal who recovered first. He intervened between 
Robert and Ralph. 

“Canna you see,” he said, “she’s mad. She can write, 
but she’s mad. She mun go to the asylum.” 

Ralph sighed like one coming to life again after a swoon. 

That was it! She was mad. They must say that, and 
nobody would believe her. Besides—Robert could not 
piece those words together. He had not the clue. It was 
dangerous enough, especially as Rwth mentioned gipsies, 
but it was curable. She must go at once—he would have 
to get her certified—that could be done in a few days, 
and then! Fringal was worth his salt, after all. 

The music stopped. Gillian was coming. Robert 
sprang up and drew his sleeve across the board, and whis¬ 
pered to Rwth, “Dunna let Gillian know you’re Elmer’s 
wife. If she didna love you,” he muttered to Elmer as 
he went back to his seat, “I’d nigh kill you.” 

And there she stood, very pale in the lamplight, very 
still. She had heard. She looked at the board for en¬ 
lightenment, but there was nothing. She looked at the 
four faces. There also was nothing. She could see that 
something had happened; but the only sign of it was in 
their expressions and in those muttered words of Robert’s. 
There had been something fierce and dreadful in the room. 
She shivered. It had left a shadow here, but what it was 
she could not guess. 

The boding wind was louder in the chimney. Robert’s 
face was stern and set. 

“I’m going now,” he said. He turned to Gillian. “A 
word with you, Gillian,” he said. 

Silent, wondering, she followed him. He stood on the 
doorstep, his outline almost lost in the soft, smothering 
blackness of the night, which was invisibly astir with fall¬ 
ing snow. She stood on the step above, her figure very 
sharp and definite against the bright ruddy glow of the 
bar. Their eyes were almost level. 


268 


Seven for a Secret 


“No offence meant,” said Robert, “but I’d be glad if 
you’d tell me summat. Do ye love Ralph Elmer or don’t 
ye?” 

A flake of snow lit softly on his brow, just where she 
had kissed him. The wind sighed in the old dry grasses 
round the door. 

“If she didna love you I’d nigh kill ye.” 

The words rang in her brain, echoed and rang again. 
If she said “Yes,” Robert was safe, for he would not touch 
Ralph then. But if she said “Yes” her fate was sealed. 
She would have to live with Ralph forever. It was the 
old struggle over again. If she said “No,” would he take 
her in his arms? Would he take her back to that cottage 
of his, the door of which was the door of heaven? 

She must not think of that. 

She gazed into the dark wells of his eyes, and clearly, 
very softly, she said “Yes!” 

Robert nodded and went away without another word. 

When Gillian went back into the room, Rwth had a 
look of being at bay; both Ralph and Fringal seemed to 
be questioning her, but she wrote no answer to their ques¬ 
tions, and when Fringal put a piece of chalk in her hand 
she flung it at her feet and trod on it. 

Ralph turned to Gillian. 

“She’s gone mad,” he said. “She’s going to be shut up.” 

“Mad, is she?” Gillian laughed, and Ralph was afraid 
at her laughter. “She inna mad, Ralph Elmer. And 
what’s more, I’ll And out what she wrote on that board.” 

“She’s mad, and she’s going.” 

“She inna, and she’s going to stop. And I’ll tell every¬ 
body as she inna mad. And to-morrow she’ll write agen 
for me, wunna you, Rwth?” 

Rwth nodded. 

“You’ve got a tidy bit to hide, seemingly,” said Gillian 
in a steely voice, “if you’re so terrified of what poor Rwth 
writes.” 


Fringal Forgets to Laugh 269 

All night, while Gillian and Rwth were asleep, Ralph 
and Fringal consulted as to what they should do. 

“It’s the gipsies—it’s me having stolen all that gold, 
and us burying that child and the girl going dumb when 
she found out—them’s the things I canna smooth away,” 
said Fringal. 

“And only this very day,” Ralph said, “as I was coming 
away from Dosset’s Farm a gipsy-looking fellow was 
loitering about, and he says, ‘Is this the place where there’s 
a wench with big black eyes like clear water?’” 

“Laws!” 

“It must have been that woman that came on the wed¬ 
ding day as talked about her,” said Ralph. “But it shows 
we’ve got to be careful.” 

“What did you say?” 

“Told him she’d gone to the Keep.” 

“You’re a clever un, maister.” 

At that moment Gipsy Johnson, having passed the inn 
while the playing was going on, and not stopping because 
of his anxiety to get to the Keep before the snow came, 
was well on his way. He had knocked at Robert’s door, 
but finding him out, had decided to return to-morrow if 
the snow held off. If it did not he was going to send a 
younger man to find out where the girl was, and to haunt 
the place until he could come himself. 

Ah! how the moor sighed all night, under the fitful 
wind, as though it cried: “What matters it? Soon I re¬ 
turn, covering all with a sea of heather. What matters 
it? Trouble not your midget lives with midget griefs! 
See! Even now my tide rolls on, like the tide of Time. 
What matters it?” 

In the cottage by the moaning orchard Robert fought 
down the desire to destroy his enemy. He fell asleep at 
last in the armchair that had belonged to Jonathan, and 


270 


Seven for a Secret 


heard like the songs of sea maidens sounding in the wind, 
the song he had made for Ailse: “In a dream she cradled 
me,” and the voice of Gillian, perilously sweet, singing 
the antique song of motherhood. 

But he would never have believed, even in a dream, that 
the reason Gillian sang like that, with such piercing sweet¬ 
ness, was that there, in the little dark parlour of the 
“Mermaid’s Rest” she had seen a vision, as she sang the 
song of Esmeralda, of the child of her desire, and that the 
child had eyes dark and dreamy and well warded by lashes 
—eyes of such a blazing vitality that the colour could 
scarcely be seen—and the smile of Robert Rideout. 


chapter xxix: Snow in the Little Gyland 

S TORM sank to calm on Saturday morning, for the 
snow was falling quicker than it thawed, and Ralph 
and Fringal had to go out on the moor to bring in the 
sheep. Before he started Ralph caught Rwth by the arm 
and said: “If you dare to write any more I’ll pretty nigh 
kill ye!” 

But Rwth looked defiance. She would write just as 
much or as little as Robert liked. This Ralph was not 
the man she loved. Robert had told her not to write about 
her marriage with Ralph, not to let Gillian know of it, so 
she would not. But all the rest she would write if Gillian 
told her. 

“And the aggravating part of it is,” said Fringal, as 
they tramped through the heather, “as I ne’er meant to 
take the little vixen. I only meant to take the gold, but 
I heard a noise afore I’d done, so I was bound to take un.” 

He spoke as if the gold were his right, and his sin only 
the stupid mistake of being found out. 

“You’re a very cunning old man,” said Ralph. “I 
dunna forget as it was you that made me marry the nasty 
little thing.” 

“You was quite content till the t’other turned up.” 

“I made the best of it.” 

“But it were a pity we didna get a doctor when the 
brat was born. And then you clouting the girl just after, 

and telling her too soon about it being dead-” 

“She wore me out, moaning for it.” 

“It was a pity. It’s that as ud make the gipsies mad. 
And now’s the other’s took on so obstinate you canna get 
Rwth into any asylum. But maybe she’ll catch summat 
and die.” 


271 



272 


Seven for a Secret 


“She never will. She’s too strong.” 

“If the Lord ud be pleased to take er-” 

“Oh, drop that, Fringal. It’s no jpke to me.” 

“Nor me. If I was you-” 

“Well?” 

No words. Only a long look into each other’s faces, 
and a thought leaping like a sword from eye to eye. 

Ralph turned away. 

“No more o’ that, Fringal,” he said. But the thought 
was in his mind. They rounded up the sheep and returned. 
On the blackboard, re-written, was most of the writing of 
the night before. 

Ralph, coming into the kitchen to fetch his gun and 
snatch a hasty meal before going round the fields to get 
the Sunday dinner, as was his custom on a Saturday, saw 
it and was furious. 

“Where’s Rwth?” he said. 

“I dunno. Maybe she’s gone for a few more sticks 
afore the snow comes proper,” said Gillian indifferently. 

Ralph went out, beginning the long detour of enclosed 
moor and field, which usually resulted in rabbits, a hare 
or a pheasant. 

Fringal went to the stable with broom and shovel, as he 
always did on Saturday. Gillian lit the parlour fire and 
sat down to play over last night’s songs. She alone was 
undisturbed by Rwth’s writing. What did it matter to 
the daughter of Isaiah Lovekin, the wife of Ralph Elmer, 
that a certain gipsy girl called Rwth had once been Ailse? 
What did it matter that Fringal had found her, and that 
she was now servant to Ralph? 

Nothing, nothing at all. 

She sang the song of Esmeralda. 

She did not know that the young gipsy runner who had 
once brought a letter peered in through the kitchen win¬ 
dow, saw the blackboard, on which the writing remained 
(for to rub it out would be an admission on the part of 
Ralph), looted into the parlour, recognised her for Love- 




Snow in the Little Gyland 273 

kin’s daughter, whom he had seen once when with Johnson, 
and went away, only to return, stealing about the house 
and fields like a ghost. 

The afternoon wore on. 

Meanwhile Ralph had got a couple of rabbits and a 
partridge, and was on his way home. He was walking 
along the thick holly hedge that bounded the last field be¬ 
longing to the farm and ended in the gyland. He did not 
see Robert in the field below. Robert had just been to the 
inn to ask Gillian where Isaiah kept some special recipe 
for a drench, as one of the cows was sick. As he had 
turned away from the door she had said wistfully: “I’m 
all alone.” 

“Why, where’s Rwth?” he asked. 

“Gathering sticks. She went out after dinner and she 
hanna come in yet.” 

“She’ll be in the orchard,” thought Robert. “The 
snow’s too deep in the gyland.” 

In order to cross the bridge to the field that led up to 
the inn Ralph had to go through the gyland. Twilight 
had fallen. Before he was half-way through he saw 
Rwth, kneeling before a kind of bower of branches. This 
was the shrine where she worshipped her god. Every 
treasure she had gathered—the handkerchief, a pencil, a 
flower Robert had once given her—was hoarded here, 
buried under fir needles in an old tin box. And on fes¬ 
tivals she came and took them out and adored them. Her 
lifted face was enraptured. She was saying her Name of 
Names. 

“Robert Rideout! Robert Rideout!” 

And then: 

“Ailse loves Robert! Oh, Ailse loves Robert!” 

Then she would kiss the old red handkerchief and hold 
it to her heart. 

“She never did have any soul,” said Ralph. “And now 
she’s mad.” 


274 


Seven for a Secret 


He saw only, in that pathetic picture amid the falling 
snow, soullessness and madness. And did it matter what 
he saw? Does it ever matter what the fools of the world 
understand? And certainly Ralph, for all his cleverness, 
was a fool. 

As he stood there, that which Robert had so long fore¬ 
seen came to pass. From somewhere, from nowhere, out 
of the earth or the pallid sky, or out of Fringal’s bleak 
mind burst the spirit of evil. It tore through the shreds 
and patches of good in Ralph Elmer; it laid hold of the 
kindness in him with tooth and claw, and rent it; it whis¬ 
pered and whispered and whispered. So did the snow. So 
did the sere larch needles. So did the water. The whole 
world seemed to be whispering round the whispering girl. 

Hoarsely, with blood-shot eyes, Ralph whispered also. 

“Who’s that?” he breathed. “Who spoke to me?” 

There she was, a worthless, soulless creature, and she 
was going to ruin him. And some one had said—some 
one had hinted—some one was saying it now, close in his 
ear: “Suppose she was out of the way?” 

Out of the way! Under the snow! The snow was 
falling now, thick and fast. She had only to stay here, 
and it would cover her. But she never would stay. She 
was so full of life. So damnably full of life. Back she 
would go—and write. She would write that she was his 
wife, and Gillian would leave him. Gillian would be the 
creature of his passion no more. She had striven for 
freedom before, half-heartedly. She had almost told him 
she did not love him. He knew why. He knew whose 
arms would be round that smooth body if his were not. 
And this mad woman here, kneeling in the snow, was the 
cause of it all. It was because she was so full of life. 
The spirit of evil stressed that very heavily. Well, so had 
these rabbits, limp in his hand, been full of life an hour 
ago. Just a shot—one painless shot—and the life was out 
of them; they could never eat his winter broccoli again. 
And now here was Rwth—with no more soul than the 


Snow in the Little Gyland 275 

rabbits—and here was kind twilight, and snow for a cover¬ 
ing—and silence and utter loneliness and oblivion. 

The white spirit of Ralph, that his mother had loved, 
that Gillian had sometimes seen, moaned, “No!” But 
the spirit of evil silenced it. What use was Rwth to her¬ 
self or any one else? The voices went on, the busy snow¬ 
flakes whispered on. They were shutting him away from 
the world. They were making sure that nobody would 
ever know. The sudden ungovernable impulse that causes 
more crime than anything in the world, came upon Ralph 
Elmer. 

He lifted the gun to his shoulder and fired. Rwth fell 
forward without a sound. She slipped into eternity within 
the globing peace of her love, as the chrysalis of a dragon¬ 
fly might go down-stream in a water-lily. Certainly to 
her the Unket Place had not been unket, but kind. 

As Ralph looked round it had the air of content which 
some places seem to wear when that which was foreboded, 
which had to happen there, has happened at last. 

Ralph was suddenly collected, cool, detached. He did 
not feel at all as if he had done it. But somehow he did 
not feel like going home quite yet. He picked up the 
rabbits and got over into the sheep field. Robert, who had 
stood still at the shot, came across the field. Ralph was 
genial, unusually so. He was gay. And it seemed to 
Robert curious that a man with sweat running down his 
face (which he could see by the light of the climbing 
moon)—sweat which, in such weather, in itself needed 
explanation—should have this bland, affectionate manner. 

Usually they hardly spoke to each other. As if at an 
order from some hidden self far down, Robert suddenly 
said: 

“Where’s Rwth?” 

“Oh,” said Ralph gaily, “I’ve sent her across to Dosset’s. 
Their girl’s run away. She’s town-bred, and she’s afraid 
of the winter.” 

“What time did she go?” 


276 


Seven for a Secret 


“Oh, early. About mid-day.” 

Now why such a lie? For Gillian had just said she was 
gathering sticks, and if Rwth had started, she would have 
taken some luggage, and Gillian would have known. 

“What did ye get then?” 

“This coney.” 

“Stiffens very quick. A’most as stiff as the others.” 

“I shot the others but now.” 

“I’ve been in this field a good hour, looking the sheep,” 
thought Robert, “and there’s been no shot. So that’s his 
second lie.” 

“Well, you must come and see us soon,” Ralph observed, 
still with his rather hectic cordiality. 

“Maybe. If the snow inna too deep.” 

“When it goes, then. Yes, it’s going to be deep. A 
heavy fall!” 

He was evidently pleased with the snow. He turned 
away. 

“Pity you taught Rwth to write,” he said. “It’s addled 
her brain. But no offence. You meant well. And it 
makes no manner difference to me. It was all lies.” 

Robert felt embarrassed at this outpouring—embarrassed 
and troubled. All the way home he thought about it. 
Why doubt the man? What an evil mind he must have! 
Why, when the fellow said he’d just shot a rabbit, didn’t 
he believe him? What did he believe? What premoni¬ 
tion was it that laid an icy hand on him, that urged him, 
with a strange and dreadful voice, to go once more to the 
sheep meadow? It was very late before he obeyed this 
voice, and it was no pleasant journey, for the snow was 
falling fast and softly piling itself up over the fields. 
Fitful moonlight shone between the clouds. When he 
reached the gyland he heard a sound of digging. Frantic, 
hurried, yet careful digging. But before he had time to 
go over it stopped. He waited. Not a sound. Had the 
person who was digging heard him? Was he waiting for 
him to go? He intended to wait and see what was to be 


Snow in the Little Gyland 277 

seen. He was certain no one had left the gyland. To do 
so they must cross the bridge and be clearly outlined against 
the water. For the bridge was so near that even if the 
moon was behind a cloud, Robert could see it plainly. He 
waited. An hour went by—more. Not till two hours 
had gone was there any sound. Then across the bridge, 
very stealthily, went Ralph. And as if in an ironic jest 
the moon swam out and revealed every feature—every 
haunted, terrified feature of his face. 

And Robert knew, as surely as he had ever known any¬ 
thing in his life, that Ralph had murdered Rwth, had crept 
here to bury her, and had waited afterwards till enough 
snow had fallen to conceal his work. 


chapter xxx: Robert Awaits the Dawn 


I T was the hour Robert had seen with prophetic vision— 
the hour that had waked for him from all time—the 
aching, dreadful hour, filled full of smothering snow as 
he had always known it would be, which would decide his 
destiny and that of the woman he loved. 

Tears were in his eyes for the dead woman, the poor, 
forlorn child sleeping like a frozen bird in the snow. 

But the living waited. Gillian, whom he loved, waited. 
And the man he hated was in his power. He had only to 
will, and his enemy would be gone like autumn thistle¬ 
down, swept away for ever. 

As he plunged homewards in the snow, the life he might 
lead if this happened swam up before him like a promised 
land. Isaiah would be glad of any son-in-law after this 
false alliance with a murderer—glad of a strong young 
fellow to run the farm, too. And Gillian? Robert did 
not think, after the look she had given him on the 
threshold, that she would be very hard to win, if Ralph 
was destroyed in her mind by what he had done. Surely 
he could make her love him? He would show her his 
passion as well as his love, and she would, after a time, 
being lonely, give herself to him. 

But if Ralph were saved, then she would stay with 
Ralph, because she loved him. Had she not told him so? 
That was the trouble. She loved Ralph. To make her 
happy he must save Ralph. But how? It would be dis¬ 
covered as soon as the thaw set in. There was no possi¬ 
bility of its not being discovered. And as he realised this, 
and realised the thing he must do if he would fulfil his love 
for Gillian, he cried out in the muffling silence: 

“Oh, God! I canna do it!” 

278 


Robert Awaits the Dawn 279 


Ah, no! He could not, could not die. He had so much 
to do, so much to see, so many poems to make. All life’s 
experience lay before him. The love of woman, the 
triumphant joy of the bridegroom, the long, sweet days 
and nights of love—fatherhood. To hear the laughter 
of boys in the orchard—his boys, with Gillian’s smile; to 
see girls sitting on little stools by the winter fire earnestly 
stitching, with Gillian’s puckered brow. To see Gillian 
with a baby, tiny and helpless and unutterably dear, at her 
breast. 

The young man’s heart went almost faint within him 
at these pictures. And the gipsy had said—for Jonathan 
had told him—that she heard a cradle rocking, but not in 
Ralph’s house. In whose, then? In his? In Robert 
Rideout’s? It should rock on the uneven floor of his 
mother’s cottage, and he would make it himself. He 
would create it out of good seasoned oak, and love and toil. 
And he would create the babe that should lie within it. 
By his will, with or without Gillian’s, she should attain 
perfection; she should have the gift of gifts; she should 
live and give life. And with the haughtiness without 
which no young man’s character is perfect, he knew that 
it was not Gillian, rich woman though she might be, who 
would be the creditor in that bargain. He, Robert the 
shepherd, would be the giver, giving her his kingly gift 
of children. Although humility was his usual mental garb 
when thinking of Gillian, he knew that, ultimately, this 
was how things were, and must always be. 

He was back in the kitchen now. It was as if he could 
hear the rockers, could see Gillian with her hair sweeping 
across the scar, with her haughty nose and sweet mouth 
and the challenging eyes into which never, never could he 
look long enough. He could see the dark brown cradle, 
low on the floor, with its large rockers. He could see the 
little face within it, with the same sweet mouth, the same 
challenging eyes. 

And all the while he knew he was only playing with 


280 


Seven for a Secret 


Fate. He was only putting off the moment when he must 
face things. And what he must face was this. Gillian 
loved Ralph Elmer. And there was no other way to save 
Ralph than by some one else taking upon himself the guilt. 
Fringal? Well, but why? Fringal had not done it. It 
was not fair to try and force the guilt upon an unwilling 
victim. Besides, no doubt Fringal could prove an alibi. 

Two men only had no alibi. And one of those was 
himself. He had been present at the murder and at the 
burying. 

And Gillian loved Ralph Elmer. 

She might turn to him if Ralph were gone, but it was 
Ralph she loved. She had told him so twice, and Rwth 
had known it, for she had written it. All night, while the 
snow softly enclosed him from action, he wrestled with 
himself. And in the morning, when he woke from a 
troubled sleep, he had conquered. 

“You needna wrostle with me any more,” he said to 
himself or some one unseen. “I’ve said I’ll do it. It’s 
as good as done.” 

And in the peace of this thought he threw some brush¬ 
wood on the fire and made himself a cup of tea. 

He could do nothing till the thaw set in, for if he shot 
himself now (and it was that way he intended to go) he 
would leave the poor creatures of the farm to starve. He 
must wait till the thaw had set in, till he was sure some 
one would come to the farm quite soon. On Wednesday 

the butcher came round. If it had thawed by then- 

Yes, that was it, Wednesday. Nobody would ever know 
about his pennillions, nor his poem of the moor. It was 
agonising in its negation of all he was and all he had 
hoped to be. He felt he could not do it. His poems had 
beauty; Gruffydd had told him so. They were the very 
best of himself—the long one of the moor especially. 
They had cost him so much. For the words and the metre 
of a poem—the mere making of it—are in such small 



Robert Awaits the Dawn 281 

proportion to all that went before. It is the capacity for 
suffering and joy, and the hard-won knowledge of life and 
mankind that make a poet. It is generally easy to dis¬ 
tinguish a poet from a mere versifier by the lines of sorrow 
round his eyes and mouth or on his forehead. To write 
one small lyric—if it is real poetry—a man must give a 
lifetime of pain. And, after that, to be wiped off the face 
of the earth, with none to remember him, with not a line 
of his poetry to remain, and to go to his grave branded as 
a murderer! What would Gipsy Johnson think of the 
friend who had murdered his girl? What would his poor 
mother think when she saw the letter he must write? He 
could not! No. He would not! 

And Gillian? Gillian, the bloom of the moor, the 
sweetly, darkly-tinted flower, creature of sudden dewy 
gleams and glances, quite incomprehensible to him; of 
rippled laughter and those sullen moods that most stirred 
passion in him, when he could have snatched her and set 
his mouth hard on hers and (as he said to himself) a learnt 
her better manners.” 

Yes! That mischievous naughtiness, that unconquerable 
pride were what made it hardest to leave her and die 
for her. 

Yes! It was because he sometimes wanted to say, “You 
little devil!” that he so wildly loved her, wanted her, 
startled and angry and provocative, in his arms. He would 
never have wanted to say “Little devil!” to Rwth. So he 
would never have wanted to marry her. 

O God! How he desired Gillian! Through the snowy 
hours he would suddenly start up to go to her—just to 
go to her. Yet it was Rwth that had, in his dream, cradled 
him. Rwth would not have made it so hard to die—poor 
Rwth who lay beneath the snow. It was not tenderness 
that made it hard, nor love. It was passion. There is a 
melancholy sweetness in leaving for ever some dear garden 
in the hush of evening, when dreaming birds no longer 
flute, and the colours are washed away, and the sweet of 


282 


Seven for a Secret 


the day is over and has become a part of experience. But 
to leave it all in the unravished wonder of dawn! Oh, 
no, no! God of youth and manhood, no! 

“I’ve said it. It’s as good as done,” repeated Robert 
Rideout. And he walked heavily across the kitchen to 
look on the dresser for the pen. The letter must be final 
and conclusive. It must damn him past argument. And 
he must write it now. 

To die for a man he detested! 

Yet Gillian loved the man. 

When rebellion fired his mind he remembered this. He 
dipped his pen in the ink and began. He must set his death 
at the door of conscience. That was it! He had mur¬ 
dered Ailse Johnson in the little gyland, and then he could 
not bear it, because she haunted him. He forced his imagi¬ 
nation into the recesses of a murderer’s mind. A mur¬ 
derer, quite alone near the scene of his crime, practically 
snowed up, might very easily be haunted by his crime until 
he became almost insane and was driven to suicide. It 
nauseated Robert to be mixed up with such morbid, deathly 
things. But there was worse to follow. 

Why did Robert Rideout murder Ailse Johnson? 

“Well now, that’s a poser, that is!” observed Robert. 

He looked at the window, drifted with snow. At the 
clock. At the fire. 

“Oh, dang it! Why did I?” he asked of things in 
general. 

And the only answer, the horrible, disgusting answer 
was—lust. There was no other possible answer to the 
question of motive. 

“Now that’s too much, that is!” he said. He had 
always lived so cleanly. He was no saint, but he was not 
sensual. He did not lust after women: he fell in love with 
them. He had “got into trouble,” as the charitable country 
speech expresses it, once. But there had been romance and 
delight and beauty in it—something very different from 
mere lust. And now- 



Robert Awaits the Dawn 283 

He put his head down on his arms and groaned. Then, 
with a wild, drawn face, he wrote the letter. He called 
to his aid the impersonal artist in him, and he made the 
letter a masterpiece of remorse and self-revelation, fear 
and cunning. It made him feel debased. When he had 
finished the letter he went out into the welter of snow, 
and put his head under the icy water of the pump. 

The snow stopped on Tuesday morning. On Tuesday 
night the wind veered to the south. A sweet damp air 
blew from the inn to the farm. The late chrysanthemums 
in his mother’s little plot freed their faces of snow. Black 
pits and crevasses began to show on the moor. The rus¬ 
tling thunder of snow sliding from the roofs sounded at 
short intervals with the imperious tumult of a landslip. 

The thaw had come. Reprieve was over. With flap¬ 
ping silver flight the plovers went to the dark, rich plough¬ 
lands. The roads, Robert judged, would be passable to¬ 
morrow. The gun stood ready in a corner. The letter 
lay on the table. 

After the feeding and littering-up were done Robert 
sat down with a pipe to watch for the lights at the “Mer¬ 
maid’s Rest.” He had not been able to see them before, 
but now it was clear weather again. There they were! 
Calm, golden lights, beaming on others, not on him. 
Tender lights of a home that was not his! Well, they 
beamed. That was something. Into the drear night of 
hatred and pain they gleamed, and it was he that was going 
to keep them alight. 

So, with lamp and fire for company, he sat all night, 
waiting for his last dawn. 


chapter xxxi : “Now What Be Troublin’ 
Thee?” 

W HILE Robert made for her the sacrifice that is 
greater than any, what were the thoughts of Gillian 
Lovekin at the sign of the Maiden where the yellow lamps 
were shining, but not love? Was her heart blind and deaf 
that she did not see and hear afar the agony of the man 
who loved her? Was the dream of self so drowsy on her 
that, straitened within her own being, she was losing the 
glory of life? Hark, oh! hark how the hours toll! Slowly 
time drops away. Slowly above the dark head she loves 
opens Eternity. It is five o’clock in the morning, and 
already, away at the Keep, the wife of the butcher who 
travels the Dysgwlfas road to-day looks out of her win¬ 
dow into the wild, dark, rainy morning and goes down¬ 
stairs to get her husband’s breakfast. And as soon as his 
cart comes in at the farm gate, Robert goes out through 
the gate of silence. 

Is Gillian Lovekin asleep? The inn is dark and still. 
Only the mice nibble. Only the bats squeak. The 
windlestraws whisper sadly by the door, and what is Gil¬ 
lian’s life but a windlestraw with no sap of love in it? 
Down in the gyland the south wind laments, and from the 
hidden moorland comes a ceaseless roar like the roar of 
the sea. 

Poor child, are you still asleep while the best of life 
goes by? Have you forgotten Mr. Gentle? Have you 
had no intuition of your share in the crime of Ralph Elmer 
—the crime which began long before he ever saw the 
unket place; which began when he took a woman for his 
mate out of fear of Fringal and of gossip, which con¬ 
tinued when he took another woman at the compulsion of 


“Now What Be Troublin’ Thee?” 285 


Isaiah, mingling deceit and cupidity and passion? And 
in that crime, as in her dealings with Emily and Mr. 
Gentle and the conies, Gillian Lovekin’s share was that she 
thought only of herself. She married for self. She lay 
in Ralph’s arms for self. She denied Robert for self. 
She was so drugged with self that while she could have 
held in her breast, like a nestling bird with pinions folded, 
the real breathing soul of a man, she never knew it, but 
filled her hands with useless gifts instead. 

Gillian! Do you hear the shot which will sound in so 
few hours from Dysgwlfas cottage? The shot which, for 
you, should be sounding now, since a woman is a foolish 
creature indeed if love does not make her a prophetess. 
Lovers can hear forwards as well as backwards. If the 
women of the world always heard forwards in this way, 
they would hear the bruit of war in time to stop it. A 
lover feels the weight of sorrow that lies upon her distant 
love, feels his spirit, in pain, urgent upon hers. For 
surely it is unnatural and horrible for a woman to give 
herself to one whose personality is not large enough and 
strong enough to dominate her. And if it dominates her, 
she must feel the grief and joy of that mind in absence 
as well as in bodily presence. 

Could Gillian sleep on this last morning on earth of the 
man she loved? The dreaming house, and the bats and 
mice within it, knew that she could not. The south wind, 
that raced by the open window of Rwth’s empty attic, 
knew that she could not, for it lifted her hair and tore at 
the shawl she had put on over her nightdress. And the 
white star knew, which hung in the north just above the 
faint yellow radiance of Robert’s window, for it dazzled 
in her eyes and showed the love there. That yellow radi¬ 
ance had been in the cottage window all night, she knew, 
for she had watched it. Awakening from a strange dream 
soon after two, in that hour of visions and portents, when 
vitality is lowest and the dying slip away, she had heard 
Robert’s voice quite clearly saying: 


286 


Seven for a Secret 


“Gillian Rideout!” 

Not Elmer. Not Lovekin. Rideout. 

In the dream she had seen herself lying at Robert’s feet 
in his cottage. Robert was speaking kindly to her, and 
was offering her—holding it in both hands—his mother’s 
large, heavy bread-dish of old Salopian ware with the 
wreath of green leaves and yellow ears of corn in high 
relief. 

“See, Gillian!” he was saying. “Take this. I must 
go away with Mr. Gentle now: but take this, because I 
love you. It’s my heart, Gillian Rideout.” 

And looking at the dish she saw that it was so, and woke 
with a cry. And now, there was the light. It was a thing 
unknown at Dysgwlfas, to burn a light till daybreak. 
Robert must be ill. She leaned from the window in an 
agony. Robert ill, and she not there! Oh, no! It must 
not be. She sobbed. She wrung her hands. For it had 
come to pass as Robert had said in one of his poems. He 
had loved her until she was blind and deaf to herself, until 
she “couldna abear herself.” 

She went down to the room where Ralph tossed and 
muttered. She dressed quickly, not waiting to do up her 
hair, but tying it with a ribbon. She could hear the wind 
driving on the southerly window of the passage till the 
small panes seemed to crackle with its onslaught. Rain 
washed on the glass. The snow was gone, except under 
northern and eastern hedges, and on the highest points of 
the moor, and in the unket place. But the road to the 
farm was a river. And though, if it had been straight, 
the wind would have blown her there, as the way was a 
winding one she would often meet the storm or half meet 
it, and would be buffeted and breathless and drenched 
before she arrived. She made some tea and threw dry 
furze on the fire to make a blaze, for she was very cold 
after her vigil. Then, with the shawl pinned closely 
round her, she started. It was not a day on which even 
a ploughman, who will face almost any weather, would 


“Now What Be Troublin’ Thee?” 287 


have chosen to be out. When she was half-way there 
she saw a thin spire of smoke from Robert’s chimney, and 
decided to go back. But something within drove her on. 
The ends of the shawl lashed her eyes. She was wet 
through and exhausted. But she went on. She came to 
the farm, to the yard gate, to the wicket of the cottage. 
She knocked softly. There was no reply. She looked 
through the window. There was Robert, in the arm-chair, 
very still. 

His eyes were shut. 

Asleep, or-? 

She went in. How like and yet unlike that day of 
spring when she awakened Ralph Elmer with a catkin kiss! 
She was not going to awaken Robert in any such way, 
because she dared not. She was only going to see if he 
was ill or well. She tip-toed across the little kitchen, dim 
in the early light, with its one window sheeted in rain. 
His head was sunk a little forward. The broad, beautiful 
brow looked weary. The long lashes that had never made 
him look womanish lay on cheeks grown thinner in the 
last year, where the fine, clean bone showed more than it 
used to do. His hands were lightly laid on the arms of 
the chair, and he had taken off his boots and sat in stock¬ 
inged feet, for he and Jonathan would have thought slip¬ 
pers very womanish. 

She stood there, awed by his grave beauty, and she saw 
with a rush of gratitude that he breathed regularly. He 
was not ill, then; only very tired. Something must have 
been troubling him to make him sit up all night like that. 

“Now what be troublin’ thee?” she whispered. And, 
as her high-handed manner was, she began to rove round 
the little room. She did not mean to pry, only she must 
find out, before she went back, if it was anything serious. 
She dared not wake him to ask, for she knew he would be 
angry, and his anger she could not bear. He might even 
tell her what sort of a woman he thought her to come thus 
to the house of a man not her husband. If he did, she 



288 


Seven for a Secret 


thought she would die of shame. But suppose his mother 
was dead, and he very miserable, with no one to comfort 
him? Suppose he had found that the sick cow had anthrax, 
and that he had caught it? Then she wanted to catch it 
too. She must know. She looked round. Nothing. Her 
glance went indifferently past the gun. It is such a usual 
thing to see a gun leaning against the wall of a country 
kitchen. But it is not so common a thing to see a long 
letter on the table—and a letter in the writing of Robert 
himself was a very rare thing indeed. Was it a letter to 
herself? To some girl he was going to marry? 

Ah! ah! She must know. She must know that girl’s 
name! She would hate her. She would destroy*her. Oh, 
no, no! If Robert loved her, Robert should have her. 
Yes, he should—only she must and would know. She 
reached across the tablecloth and picked up the letter. 
Then, standing rigid on the opposite side of the hearthrug, 
she read it. Line by dreadful line she read it, and Robert’s 
firmly made letters danced before her eyes like elves that 
have drunk too deeply of metheglin. She knew it was not 
true that he had murdered Rwth. She would have known 
it if Rwth had lain dead in this very room. .That Rwth 
was dead she did not doubt, if Robert said so; but when 
Robert accused himself he was denying his own nature, 
and so he was lying. And as he did not like lying he must 
he doing it for some great reason. To shield—whom? 
Fringal? But why should he? There was another— 
there was one who had muttered in his sleep, who had told 
her Rwth was at Dosset’s when Rwth was dead, who had 
spoken to her of Rwth as if she had no soul, who had 
been angry at the writing, who had been out all afternoon 
—all evening, with a gun. 

“I shot Rwth in the little gyland.” 

“ ’Twas Ralph!” whispered Gillian. “ ’Twas Ralph! 
Oh, my soul!” 

She returned to her reasoning. The clock with the pale 


“Now What Be Troublin’ Thee?” 289 


golden voice chimed the quarter to seven very sweetly. 
But Robert was too deeply asleep to hear it. 

“Keep asleep! Oh, keep asleep!” she whispered. 

It was like an incantation. He might have been some 
young mariner under the green water, and she the veritable 
mermaid of the legend, charming him to slumber. 

Yes! That was it! That must be it! Ralph had some 
reason for hating Rwth. He spoke to her as if he hated 
her. Ralph had come upon Rwth in the little gyland. He 
had had the gun in his hand, and he had been tempted 
and had shot her. And now here was Robert, evidently 
after long, anguished thought, going to kill himself and 
take the blame. At the reason given in the letter for the 
crime Gillian drew down the corners of her mouth scorn¬ 
fully. “Another lie!” she thought. “I make no doubt 
there’s been a tidy few girls in love with ye, and you’ve 
kissed here and there—and there was the Shepcot girl. But 
never this, Bob! No!” 

But what a complicated tale, all made up for his own 
destruction. Why had he-? 

Like a bell, deep and beautiful and far away, she heard 
Robert’s voice: 

“Do ye love Ralph Elmer, or do ye not?” 

And she had said: “Yes.” 

And now, she knew! Now with one hand pressed to 
her racing heart, with a face white from the stress of her 
emotion, she knew! 

Robert loved her. Robert had planned for himself this 
dreadful death, this dishonour and utter annihilation from 
the love of every one he knew, simply for her—simply 
because he thought she loved Ralph Elmer, and what she 
loved she must have. 

As a kind father gives his child a toy deeply desired, so 
Robert had planned to give her Ralph Elmer. Quietly 
and without any hope of gratitude or love in return, he 
had arranged to give up his life, so that she might keep 



290 


Seven for a Secret 


Ralph Elmer! It was all as simple, as eloquent, as the 
grave silence of the sleeping man. 

Earth and Heaven broke up round Gillian Lovekin. 
Her spirit melted; her pride was a snowflake of yesterday. 
Herself? Where and what was herself? Once there had 
been a person called Gillian Lovekin, who had loved her¬ 
self so much that she was hard to every one else; who had 
thought of the universe as it affected Gillian; who had 
said, “I will have this! I will be loved and admired. I 
am Gillian Lovekin!” Then she had changed a little. 
She had wanted Robert’s love. She had been Gillian 
Lovekin, wanting him to love her. Not now, not now! 
Now it did not matter whether he loved her or not, if 
only she might love him. 

Everything had melted away. It was as if the cottage 
and the farm, the moor and the inn, were all part of the 
thaw, were all flowing, flowing down to the sea. And 
she? She was melting away, too; there was hardly any 
Gillian left, nothing but tears! Oh, tears, that would not 
fall, that choked her and blinded her! Nothing in all the 
world was left but Robert’s face—asleep in this tempest 
that raged about her. And suddenly she thought of a pic¬ 
ture of Christ walking on the sea, and of Peter, poor wave- 
devoured Peter, clinging to His feet. 

She flung herself at Robert’s feet. She laid her wet 
cheek on the coarse hand-knitted sock of her father’s shep¬ 
herd, and clasped his ankles with her hands. Her damp 
hair lay along the floor; sobs tore her; the tears came at 
last. 

It seemed that even on Juliana Lovekin the south wind 
had blown. Even to Juliana Lovekin the thaw had come. 

Robert, in his exhausted slumber, became vaguely con¬ 
scious of unrest. He had fallen asleep with his purpose 
so keenly in his mind that the first thing he thought was 
that some one was awakening him because the moment had 
come. He thought of his mother, and how she used to 
awaken him on days of childish sorrow—when he was to 


“Now What Be Troublin’ Thee?” 291 


go to the doctor to have a burn dressed, or to have a tooth 
out. He had the same sinking of the heart now. But his 
mother would not fumble about his feet like a small lost 
creature. Something damp was pressed against his sock. 
A frantic clasp was about his ankles. What was it? Had 
he died, and was this warm peace with seven pale golden 
chimes in it Heaven? But surely there were no woollen 
stockings in Heaven, nor damp, sobbing creatures clinging 
to them! He dragged himself into wakefulness. With 
a great effort he opened his eyes. 

Gillian! Gillian as he had once prophetically seen her 
and written of her. Gillian, the rich farmer’s daughter, 
all bedraggled with tears, fumbling at his feet, kissing his 
socks. 

Oh! he must be dead, and this a dream of Heaven. But 
why was the poor child crying so? Where was his letter? 
This was not at all as he had planned it. And Gillian 
never spoke. It was most strange. 

“Why, Gillian! ” 

He stooped and touched her hair. It was wet. His 
socks were wet. What with the rain and the tears, no 
mermaid could have been much damper than Gillian. 

And still she clung to him. Never had he seen a crea¬ 
ture in such an abandonment of woe. He was shocked; 
it was dreadful to see this lovely haughty Juliana lying 
there like a forgotten penitent. 

“Mrs. Elmer!” he said, “you’ve forgotten yerself.” 

She caught his hand and pulled herself on to her knees 
at that. With a face streaming with tears she looked up 
at him. She was like a child saying its prayers. 

“I love ye, Robert!” she said. “I know it all, and I 
love ye! I read the letter. Please to let me love ye, 
Robert Rideout!” 

Robert lifted her face and looked into her eyes. And 
because he was very near crying himself, he took refuge 
in a kind of desperate mirth, and with a look half-way 
between reckless triumph and demure jest, he said: 


Seven for a Secret 


292 

“What, marry cowman-shepherd?” 

“I wish I could! Oh, I wish I could! But I’ll never 
go away unless you send me, Robert.” 

“What! Live along of cowman, and you a married 
lady? Make yerself a nayword; you that was the pattern 
of a rich woman?” 

No words. Only that frantic grip, those kisses on his 
hands, those sobs. 

“My dear!” he said. “Rwth was Elmer’s missus.” 

“Rwth?” 

“Ah!” 

“Then I’m-?” 

“You be Miss Lovekin agen, and we mun find a remedy 
for it. Why, you’re lying right across the ‘ Welcome’ on 
the rug! That’ll never do!” 

With a laugh that had in it the merriment of a hundred 
boys, all taking “dogs’ leave” and all neesening, he stooped 
and gathered up the sobbing little creature who was the 
heiress of the countryside. 

Soon he must think about all sorts of things—about 
Rwth lying lonely in the gyland, and Elmer and Johnson. 
But they must wait. 

He smoothed the damp and tangled hair from her brow. 

“Will ye like doing what cowman-shepherd tells ye?” 
he asked, with a tenderly malicious smile. 

Silence. Only the busy, comfortable ticking of the 
clock, the sigh and wash of the rain. 

“Will ye sing Esmeralda’s song agen—some day—Gil¬ 
lian Rideout?” 

No answer. Only the rain, lisping on the window. 

“Why, Gillian! You’ve lost your words!” said Robert. 

Bending his head he set his mouth on hers. Ages upon 
ages went by. There was time in that kiss for the world 
to dispart itself from a blazing meteor, and cool, and 
gather moisture, and bring forth grass and trees, and deck 
itself with orchards and gardens. There was time for it 
to create for itself denizens, creatures terrible and beau- 



“Now What Be Troublin’ Thee?” 293 


tiful; time for the roar of the mastodon to echo and 
diminish and fail, for fish to become beasts; for beasts to 
take wing; for mankind to appear—there was even time 
for humanity to find, in the windy darkness of evolution, 
its soul. 

A hundred thousand ages fled. Time was left far back 
on the road like a hobbling ancient. Eternity flowered 
in every crevice. And yet, when Robert Rideout came to 
himself after that kiss, and slackened the grip that had 
almost crushed her, the hands of the respectable eight-day 
clock, which seemed to be observing him with astonish¬ 
ment, pointed precisely to five minutes past seven. 

“Oh, Robert!” whispered Gillian, “Robert! The 
powers of darkness have loosed their hold, and I’m not a 
child of sin any more.” 

And it seemed to Robert, as he looked at the high brow 
he loved, with all the disordered hair swept away from 
it, that there was no scar there at all. 


chapter xxxii : “Seven for a Secret 
That’s Never Been Told” 

B UT the reader must by this time be indignant. What 
is the explanation of the title? Why has everything 
gone to pieces like this? Why are Robert and Gillian 
sitting all alone in Robert’s cottage at half-past seven in 
the morning? What has happened to Johnson and Elmer 
and Fringal? Has nobody missed Rwth? Where are the 
police? Has not Robert remembered that it is past milking 
time and that the fowls are still shut up and complaining 
bitterly? Did the butcher come? Did it go on raining 
always? Did the thaw last? Did not Isaiah and Mrs. 
Makepeace ever return to their respective homes? Who 
has, in this uncalled-for manner, let eternity into the cot¬ 
tage and spoilt the plot? Reader, that is how things 
happen! When Love, the scarlet-mantled, comes in, can 
the author help being dazzled? 

But things did happen almost as they should in a well- 
regulated novel. Johnson had found out everything, and 
he went to the “Mermaid’s Rest” that very morning, only 
to see an empty stable, an empty cash-box and signs of 
hurried departure. Ralph and Fringal had disappeared for 
ever. The whole story came out. Isaiah and Mrs. Make¬ 
peace returned in great agitation. Poor Ailse was buried 
in the churchyard. Nobody would live at the “Mermaid’s 
Rest,” so the moor began to flow back over it, covering its 
sorrow with beauty. The sign of the Mermaid swung 
creaking in the wind, and as no one renewed her, the lady 
was at last quite obliterated. But the children who rove 
about the deserted and silent place, unafraid in their inno¬ 
cence, call the buttercups “Mermaid’s Money.” And the 
294 


“Seven for a Secret” 


295 

story has made for itself a place in the annals of the coun¬ 
try, and has become as one of Jonathan’s tales, which the 
other Jonathans will tell in rosy bar-parlours, or in the 
brindled shadow of blossoming trees, while the years roll 
their purple over the moor. 

And on a summer day, when the deserted doorstep of 
the “Mermaid’s Rest” is blue with bird’s-eye, a boy with 
eyes so bright and dark with vitality that you cannot tell the 
colour of them says: “A long time ago, when our dad was 
a cowman, mother lived there.” And a younger lad, with 
solid shoulders and a masterful air, asks: “Why dunna she 
live there now?” “Oh! Father fetched her away,” says 
Bob; “ye see, he wanted her for himself and us. He was 
nobut a cowman then, our dad wasn’t.” 

But the eldest, whose hands are full of summer flowers, 
and who is like her mother, says: “How durst you say our 
dad was a cowman, Bob!” For she is a true descendant 
of Isaiah and Juliana Lovekin, and she thinks it kinder 
not to mention her father’s humble birth. Does she not 
go to tea at the Vicarage? 

“It dunna matter, so long as he was a good cowman,” 
says Bob. 

There is a shout of naughty laughter from the younger 
one. “He wasna! He forgot to milk one day till it ud 
gone nine!” 

But the reader wants to know about the title of the book, 
and about the secret. Was it Robert’s love for Gillian, 
or Gillian’s for him, or Ailse’s, or her hidden story? But 
all these have been told. Is there more? Out in the early 
summer morning, listening to the silence, you know that 
there is more, that in and beyond the purple earth and silver 
sky there is a mystery so great that the knowledge of it 
would be intolerable, so sweet that the very intuition of its 
nearness brings tears. Every sigh of the mystic, every new 
word of science, is fraught with it. Yet its haunts are 
further away than time or space or consciousness. It may 
be that death reveals it. Certainly life cannot, for if we 


296 


Seven for a Secret 


learnt that secret, such is its glory and piercing beauty that 
it would kill us. 

Maybe it was not Gillian, in all the tremulous yet 
triumphant beauty of wifehood and motherhood, not even 
Robert in the glory of manhood and poetry and coura¬ 
geous love that came nearest to this mystery, which decrees 
that those who are all love, as Ailse was, must suffer, 
while those who are selfish, like Gillian, are redeemed. 
Perhaps it was Ailse’s compensation, as she floated down¬ 
stream to eternity in the water-lily of a pure and unre¬ 
warded love, that she understood before them all the secret 
that’s never been told. 


THE END 


H43 86 




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